


The Raven Network

by declantheelynch



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, I love writing things only for me personally to enjoy. be the change you wanna see in the world, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV Richard Gansey III, Slow Build, all friendship is romantic, anyway Gansey is bi and has adhd because I'm the smartest person alive, pining... yearning... you know the drill, the inherent tragedy of loving someone in a way they don't understand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-01-25 07:10:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21352276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/declantheelynch/pseuds/declantheelynch
Summary: Gansey, in the midst of an absolute crisis (recently heartbroken, aching to find purpose, quietly in love with his best friend), suddenly has a million, no, BILLION dollar idea. It's beautiful and miraculous and wonderful--“Is this goodbye?”“Never,” Gansey instantly shot back, stomach sinking. Never. He wasn’t going to lose him, nothing was going to change that.Until it isn't.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Adam Parrish, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 14
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Social network au because I love to have fun! And no, you don't need to have seen the movie to read this. I Do Not Care how facebook was made, its about the DRAMA (also, I promise there will be A Point to the Gansey POV, please bear with it if that's discouraging lmao)
> 
> I'd also like to add while I'm here, I adore both of these properties so so much I would literally fucking kill to see other people take a crack at this au!! This is my first time posting to ao3 so I'm not sure if it's like.. frowned upon for writers to do the same aus, but I personally would really really enjoy seeing other takes on this plot! To be honest, I havent written creatively since sometime mid-last year and I think you can tell how rusty I am haha, so if you're a fucking freak weirdo like me that's been dying for someone to connect the adansey markuardo dots but are unsatisfied with how I've done it, I would genuinely love to see other interpretations :^) and if theres one that already exists PWEASE direct me to it bc I am unaware of its existence lmao
> 
> ok thats all, enjoy <33

“Gansey. Gansey!”

Gansey suddenly startled, looking away from the all too bright screen of his computer, testing his slippery vision by blinking shut his eyes and widening them again. There were practically little animated bubbles fizzing and popping around him; he was never one to get drunk, but sometimes, it was necessary. His eyes focused on the elegant length looming over him, thrifted designer coat still on, with snow speckling the shoulders. He did a subconscious check of other established comforting familiarities: freckles peppered in the shapes of constellations (Leo, Cepheus, Scorpio, and Draco, respectively. He counted them all as he always did), eyes the color of frozen asphalt, fine eyebrows permanently knitted, the ever present crease in-between them. A deep sigh released itself from his chest, a loose smile cracking open his mouth. “Adam,” he said dreamily, “thank god it’s you.”  
A snicker choked out from behind them, Gansey’s roommate, Noah, making himself known. He hadn’t been helpful at all throughout the evening, besides supplying the alcohol, but Gansey didn’t expect him to be. Gansey had been long used to Noah’s catastrophically casual state of existence, floating along, only stopping to giggle or sigh. How he managed to get into Harvard, Gansey didn’t know, but he had become too endeared to him to question too much.  
They both ignored him. Adam looked back down to Gansey, “You weren’t answering your phone, so I wanted to come by to make sure you were alright." Confusion struck Gansey. He laughed as he asked, “And why would you need to do a silly thing like that?” It ended with a hiccup rather than a question mark. He was a living, breathing cliché. Adam’s eyebrows found a way to come even closer together. “Because of Blue. You blogged about it.”  
Gansey’s heart found its way into his stomach, drowning itself deep in acid.  
Blue.  
His brain launched him back three hours, back to when they were still dating.

Richard Campbell Gansey the Third had been aching. It was a dull, gnawing pain that had made itself known since he was able to have cognitive thoughts. The desperation for relief of this was somehow a worse twist of the knife. It was with tremendous, simultaneous sadness and fondness he recalled his childhood; one hyperfixation after the other, never satisfied sitting still, his little mind unable to accept the gravity of reality.  
The ADHD diagnosis didn’t help his parents’ perception of him either. A lingering disappointment stained their expressions and their voices whenever as a small child, Gansey begged them to listen. They were much more willing to rattle off explanations for their erratic child’s behavior than pay attention to the roots of the behavior. The expectations for his teenage years were covered in dirt and bugs with how low they were.  
How could he have been expected to be successful? Little Dick the Third—with glasses that always found ways to shatter, and hands too big for his skinny arms, and worms wriggling from his pockets, and nervousness leaking from his ears, and an uncontrolled yearning that was never listened to—could not possibly live up to Dick One and Two, and he knew it. Oh, he knew it. There was nothing quite like a trust fund and an oppressively grand lineage to inspire.  
So, contacts replaced glasses, and his body grew handsomely into itself from rowing crew, and his pockets only carried his wallet, and he plugged up his ears, and perfectly honed his politician smile. That’s what he was always meant to be anyways: president or lawyer or any other career that required pearly white grins.  
And the aching still burned holes inside him, and he wished more than anything the scars would surface. Instead, he only swallowed himself further. The innocent hobbies turned into full-blown obsessive hyperfixations, restless nights became insomnia induced weeks without sleep, and the plugged up nervousness rotted his brain into debilitating anxiety. Yet, he steamrolled himself through it all, smile always glistening.

But the aching still stayed. He played his part exceptionally well, and the aching still stayed. There had to be more than this for him. And he thought Blue, his brilliant, eccentric, absolutely one-of-a-kind girlfriend of two months would understand.

He couldn’t even remember what he’d said to make her so upset. And he knew that even if he could remember, he wouldn’t have been able to figure out why it upset her. He disgusted himself.   
“Dating you is like dating the entirety of wall street, Gansey! Black suits and mistresses and wives dating pool boys and the endless exhaustion of… of fakeness! And I thought you would let it go, I genuinely thought you were more than that. But, Gansey, I cannot emphasize enough how draining it is being around someone like you. You’re just gonna go through life with that stupid mask thinking you need it, when actually, you're privileged enough to have never needed it the first place. You worry people won’t like you because of your old Virginian money, and I promise you that isn’t true. It’ll be because you’re a self-obsessed asshole.”  
And then she left.  
He really was a living, breathing cliché.

Gansey groaned, thick and guttural as his throat closed up again. He shut his eyes once more and let his head fall into his hands. “Oh, come on, Gans,” Adam sighed. He sat on the desk and laid a long, gentle hand on Gansey’s shoulder. “I tried warning you that kind of girl would never put up with your kind of bullshit.” And Adam was right. How could he not be? Practicality and cold reasoning surged through him instead of blood. The freckled hand on his shoulder was solid and capable. Gansey felt a sudden urge to touch it. Noah laughed again.  
Adam was relentlessly solid and capable, always had been.

Gansey met Adam last school year—kind of.  
Three weeks into freshman year, Gansey’s fickle sense of control completely fractured. Frigid Cambridge cracked him open in a way sickly sweet, sticky Virginia would never be capable of. He found himself in a wing of Harvard he hadn’t seen before or since, a dark corridor with oppressive, heavy wooden walls and floorboards that wailed with every step. He cried for the first time in eight years.

And then, as if lead by the sly, coy hand of fate, a pair of frozen asphalt eyes saw him, and witnessed him.  
“Do you want some company?” An elegant, homesick inducing accent asked. Gansey looked up and was suddenly transported back to Latin class in his senior year of high school.

Gansey’s academic pursuits were consistently exceeding… all except for Latin. But where his tongue clumsily tripped over the language, one particularly strange, gifted boy made the words slip from his mouth as effortlessly as if it were his mother tongue, beautiful accent bleeding into each sentence. They had no other classes together, but the boy had made a deep, lifelong impression on Gansey. He could not help but stare at him from afar, notice the way the bones in his hands jutted out, recognize the patterns speckled on his high, carved in cheeks. His appearance was unearthly, bizarre, as if he did not belong in the classroom of an elite private school, like he had somehow found his way into modern times from a painting from the 19th century, or a photograph from World War 2. But above all, Gansey noticed, he was very, very lovely. It would’ve been more effort to not look at him than it was to focus the attention he should’ve reserved for class on the odd way he existed. They had never spoken to each other, Gansey too self conscious to make the effort, the boy (in Gansey’s mind) too transcended to bring himself back down to the plasticity of Aglionby Academy’s reality.

But suddenly, here they were, as if there was no other place for them to be, against any odds. Perfectly stage-managed, fate placed them together.  
Gansey nodded, and they sat together in peaceful silence, Gansey having the profound realization that in that moment, he was not alone. It did not matter if they spoke: he wasn’t alone. From then on, the two were inseparable. Gansey never asked if Adam remembered him from high school. It didn’t matter. Magnificently capable, strange Adam could’ve chosen anyone, and yet he stuck with Gansey. It was a gift he intended to treasure. There was no reason to think of the past.  
Well, at least not the distant past.

“Adam,” he sniffed, “I need you.”

Noah snickered. Adam Blinked. Gansey cleared his throat. “I need your help,” he specified. Adam’s mouth twitched in his almost-smile way. “I’m here for you,” he said, hand retreating from Gansey’s shoulder. It rested back on the table top, and Gansey stared at it intently. “What’s up?” Adam asked, not particularly forceful. Gansey just looked back to his screen, wincing slightly at its brightness. Adam leaned over to see what he was looking at, though Gansey’s attention shifted to the way Adam’s throat became visible as he stretched his neck. “What’s all this?” Adam asked. “Do you remember that little game we programmed together once?” Gansey replied. Adam’s cheek dimpled, “The one about you-know-who?”

Gansey smiled too, he couldn’t help himself when his past endeavors resurfaced. Adam knew all about them. A few months back, they had coded a simple program based on all Gansey’s past fixations; it wasn’t so much a game as it was an algorithm to see which one was the most important to him, setting them up against each other and voting on which one mattered more to him. His long love of Welsh history won, though botanical studies was a close second. This wasn’t the point at the moment, though.  
“I need the algorithm from it,” he said, earnest. Adam had always been smarter than him, even if he wasn’t inebriated he would never be able to remember the exact code. Adam studied the screen further, and Gansey studied the way it was so clear how the cogs in Adam’s head turned, how his entire demeanor shifted as he processed information. Suddenly, his face wrinkled: click, he connected the dots.  
“Gansey, what is this?” He said, voice strained with exhaustion. A dull thud sounded from behind them, followed by a giggle. Gansey felt a sudden longing to be silly and stupid with Noah instead of doing anything he was in the middle of doing.  
“I thought it’d be funny,” he said simply, looking back to the screen again.

In front of them was the beginnings of a code similar to the one he and Adam had made months back. The difference was, instead of Gansey’s obsessive coping mechanisms, it was name after name of fellow male Harvard students, each name more pompous and ridiculous than the last. Blue’s face came to mind as he read them: she’d think it was funny, comparing men of Harvard and voting on who was the more pompous and ridiculous looking of the two. Adam wasn’t laughing though. “Gans, this has got to be some of the most convoluted self-depreciation I’ve seen from you in a long, long time.”  
This was a genuinely shocking, hurtful statement. “What could you possibly mean by that?” Gansey asked plainly. Adam guffawed and motioned to the computer as if the answer could possibly be obvious to Gansey, who just cocked his head and widened his eyes in confusion. Adam’s eyes slanted, the corner of his mouth twisted into a small smirk as he leaned in closer to Gansey’s face. It was all very cunty and sexy and Gansey was so, so drunk.  
“Mocking men who are cut from the same expensive, Italian linen as you won’t convince her to take you back,” Adam said. Gansey considered this for a moment. Well, yeah. Of course, Adam was right, this was admittedly very pathetic of him… however, “Is it not very funny, though?” He asked, voice sounding like a child begging for approval. Adam held his gaze for a moment, Gansey’s breath haltering in anticipation. He broke it with a scoff, shaking his head, yielding. He sighed and looked back at the names, smiling wry and tired and conceding.  
“They’re a different breed of bastard, aren’t they? Maybe they deserve the hazing— overlooking your personal motivation,” Adam said, sneering, and Gansey laughed.  
It was rare Adam would willingly avoid any opportunity to disrupt the pride of the overly privileged. Maybe that’s why they were such good friends.

Gansey sighed dreamily and cradled his cheek in his hand. “So,” he began, “the algorithm?” Adam’s smirk grew wider. He stood in one graceful motion, and grabbed a dry erase marker from the very specifically— ‘Gans-ally’ —organized collection of writing utensils covering every inch of his desk. He yanked the cap off, took two long, brisk steps over to the window, and began to work. His brilliant mind calculated and recalculated long streams of beautifully scrawled math on the window, reconfiguring the code needed.

Noah laughed for real, and Gansey laughed with him.


	2. Chapter 2

“Mr. Richard Gansey, do you understand why you are here?”  
Well. He supposed he did, though he had not planned for it. He didn’t realize just how much people loved to bash the rich. If he had, the entire Harvard network crashing at 4am the night before because of the ‘game’ he had made spreading across the whole campus wouldn't have been a surprise.

“Yes, I do,” he replied calmly. If he were a different person he’d probably take the opportunity to be… what, not so polite? To be an asshole? He couldn’t even fathom what he’d say in this hypothetical. His brain, which used politeness as his sole survival instinct, did not have the tools to entertain the idea.  
“So you understand the lengths of the damage you have caused?” The head of the administrative board, Smith or Williams or some other name of that general sound, continued. Gansey felt a little stung by this. “If I may, I can hardly see what it is you’re talking about.” As he spoke, his Virginian accent slipped out, old money echoing throughout the room. At this point, flexing even the most minuscule muscles of his origins was beyond his control; it was the only way his mind knew he could regain control.

Smith or Williams—god, Gansey was bad at remembering names—looked vaguely stupefied. He blinked at Gansey, and Gansey continued to stare at him with honesty. He truly didn’t know how he could be in trouble. While he could understand the issues of the network crashing, and dealing with the egos of the students involved, something inside him stirred with excitement. _He_ crashed the network. _He_ was the one now getting railed for it. If anyone else had a problem with it, they’d have to bring it up with _him_.  
“Would you be so generous as to explain what it is you mean by that?” Smith or Williams or—oh, perhaps it was Anderson, asked. Gansey was more than happy to, “While I offer my sincerest apologies to those offended, I believe my fellow men of Harvard have enough grace to not let something as silly as this perturb them so thoroughly.” Perhaps Anderson scoffed quietly, “So what should be done about your numerous violations, ranging from university laws to student privacy?”

There was a small beat as Gansey had a sudden moment of self-awareness. The answer to this was clinging to his teeth, ready to be announced without any elegance. He thought of Blue and how disappointed she’d be. He thought of Adam, who’d roll his eyes and pretend it didn’t bother him as deeply as it would. Then, he thought of his father, how he was his father’s son, how they had the same hazel eyes and same smile molded to charm, and it suddenly struck him he didn’t know what his other options were. He genuinely didn’t know what else to do. It was with even more shock and embarrassment he realized he felt humiliated by it. But still, clearing his throat, applying that slick slave of respectability on his voice, was as natural and effortless as ever.  
“With all due respect, I’d rather not be so vocally… indelicate, though I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on what remedies I would gladly provide,” he said smoothy, intentionally.

The administrator looked him in the eyes, and in that moment, Gansey saw himself within him. How had Perhaps Anderson gotten to this moment? Surely he had been a Harvard graduate as well, with loving mommy and daddy back home funding each expense. It was possible he had been a reckless, indecent student, who only coasted through because of his resources. Maybe this very job was handed to him, silver platter sparkling. And just how many students had he encountered? How many used the same offer as Gansey just had? And how many of them felt as sick over it as he did?

He pushed his way out from the stuffy building, feeling all sorts of exhilarated and filthy.  
He had not made it two steps outside before he noticed Adam sitting on the stone steps leading up to the building, reclined against a pillar. He was bundled tightly in his coat, his breath puffing out in milky clouds, the stinging air flushing his high cheeks and nose; Gansey felt a rush of affection surge through him upon realizing he had been patiently waiting for him in the cold.

“Yo,” Gansey called out, raising his hand in a small wave after Adam glanced up to see who was addressing him. Adam’s cheek creased, the implication of a smile, so entirely himself. He stood swiftly, shoulders hunched, shoving his hands deep into his coat pockets, ready to go when Gansey was. Gansey stumbled to him, and in response, Adam unsheathed one of his frozen hands to greet him with a familiar handshake.  
As they stomped down the steep steps, Adam turned his head to him and said, plainly, “So, what’s the damage?” Adam skipped the last three steps just for the sake of it. Gansey met him at the bottom three steps later, an act of prolonging the inevitable. He sighed, bracing himself, “One month academic probation.”  
Adam leveled with him, and Gansey could see the immediate, unasked question bubble in his head: _‘That’s all?’_ Most students would’ve gotten at least six months. The implication was scathing. It was moments like these Gansey felt the g-force of himself crashing back down to earth, back to the reality of who he was and who Adam was. They could pretend it wasn’t the case if they just didn’t talk about it, but the thrifted clothes and the self mastered skills and the eye rolls tossed towards the elite said all that needed to be said. Adam wasn’t a Richard. It drove Gansey insane with adoration and frustration and pity and self hatred.

But they continued to pretend. Adam just shoved Gansey’s shoulder teasingly as he said, “I guess they gotta make an example out of you.” Gansey laughed weakly, knowing what Adam was really saying. “It is simply news to me that Harvard students are so sensitive,” he replied, attempting to continue any light humor. Adam’s mouth split into a thin smile. He gave Gansey’s shoulder a few strong smacks, resting it still for a blissful moment, before turning to begin their walk back to the dorm.  
Gansey let out another deep breath and caught up to Adam’s side.

Gansey had to rip his eyelids open for the fifth time only twelve minutes into an hour long class. He wouldn’t have guessed there would be such an integral difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics, but the courses he was required to take for his Poli-sci major proved him otherwise. It was miserable.  
His vision cleared and he looked back down at his notes to see where he left off. And perhaps he was just truly going insane for real this time, but suddenly there was a new folded piece of paper before him. He did not recall folding a rogue paper. In his peripheral he saw motion, and when he looked up, he saw the familiar movement of students returning to their previous positions after passing a note. He picked up the note, which felt somehow smoother, glossier then normal notebook paper, and unfolded it.

_‘Meet me in the hall after class — Whelk’_

Whelk. Something in his brain prodded at him, as if he should recognize the name, but the fogginess from this lesson that clouded him refused to lighten. He’d figure it out soon enough anyways, and with that, he crumpled up the note and shoved it in his pocket.

“Richard Gansey,” a deep voice called out amongst the idle chatter that rang throughout the hall. Gansey turned upon hearing his name, and standing outside the doorway was Barrington Whelk. Gansey knew the name despite it not being on the note. He knew the name because he knew the man.  
He was entirely the same: tall but gangly, with bulging black eyes that overpowered the boyish charm of his other features. He had not changed at all since Gansey first knew him, when Gansey was a freshmen at Aglionby and he was a junior. He should be twenty two now, about to graduate, ready to take on the world as he so consistently insisted he would.  
Barrington moved to lounge against the wall beside them, his posture still impeccable. He carried himself with a confidence, an ease that could only be achieved with years of dutiful grooming purchased by millionaire parents. As he moved, Gansey felt a distant wave of recollection hit him, the discomfort of deja vu but with the even worse discomfort of the knowledge of what caused it. In Barrington’s movements, he saw a shadow of Adam mimicking that same expensive stance. It was disconcerting easily seeing the difference between their posture: Barrington was born into it, while Adam molded himself into it. He could never quite roll out his broad shoulders wide enough, couldn’t allow himself to take up as much space as Barrington would. Gansey felt guilty for noticing.

“Barrington! How nice to meet your acquaintance again,” Gansey said, entirely polite, masking his unease at this development. Barrington let out a breathy bark of a laugh, “Please, I insist you call me Whelk, but the pleasure is entirely mine.”   
Gansey felt odd in this sudden moment of camaraderie between two trust fund kids now going by their last names. Though he had a feeling Barrington—or Whelk, he reminded himself—did it for some reason different than his own. At least, he could try to convince himself that. It was a dangerous thing to compare patterns cut from the same fabric, or whatever it was Adam had said.  
“Were you just saying hello or is there something more I can help you with?” Gansey asked, wanting to get whatever this conversation was over with. He wanted to nap, he wanted to read, he wanted to see Adam, he wanted and wanted and wanted, but he _didn’t_ want to be further reminded of his roots by talking to a fellow Aglionby alumnus.  
“That is dependent on you, Gansey,” Whelk began, “and whether you’d like to have your own slice of history.”  
And it was funny how in that moment, Whelk pinpointed the core of who Gansey had become as a person. And it was a delicious offer. “Elaborate,” he said, more blunt than he would have been in a different circumstance. Whelk just smiled at him, icy and strange. “Walk with me.”

_So, this is what a final club break room looks like,_ Gansey thought to himself. Whelk had brought him into the foyer of the Porcellian one of the most elite clubs in all of Harvard—in all of the world, depending on who you asked. It was a fantastically ancient building, history seeping from the walls, each photograph laced with stories Gansey longed to know every minuscule detail of. It was built to perfectly align with all of Gansey’s precise tastes, but tragically, he was only allowed this far into the club.   
Because he wasn’t a member.   
Not only wasn’t he a member of the Porcellian, he wasn’t a member of anything. Though he would never confess it out loud from fear of being perceived as pretentious as he really was, he longed to be in a final club. Maybe it was because of the exclusivity, it was _cool_ to be in a club. Maybe it had to do with the sense of belonging, the validation he’d receive being in a thicker than water pack of likeminded men. But maybe… he wanted to feel worthy enough to be apart of one; maybe he wanted to prove that golden ichor blood pulsed through his body for a reason. Maybe he wanted to be one of them, truly one of _them_. But he’d never know because they’d never invite him. In a room full of gold did any of it really shine?

“So sorry I can’t take you in any further,” Whelk said, not sounding particularly sorry. Gansey took this camouflaged boast in stride, “no worries, I understand the rules.”  
Whelk lounged in a plush, velvety chair, legs spread and arms lax on the armrests. Gansey followed suite by sitting in the glossy leather couch across from it, kicking one leg over the other, waiting for Whelk to speak first. It seemed Whelk was more than happy to. “I’m not gonna pretend I appreciated your stunt the other night as anything more than a childish dig in the ribs,” He began, and Gansey felt a laugh bubble in his chest. There was something satisfying about knowing he could get under the skin of a Porcelain Pig. “But I can’t say I wasn’t impressed by the caliber of which you got it spread.”  
Gansey already couldn't take this entirely seriously, even if that was a genuine compliment. He just shrugged, “I have lots of friends.” He actively chose to ignore the first half of the sentence. Whelk laughed, “Apparently. But to have been able to code, process, and release a program of that complexity and to get such a wide reach—and while drunk even, according to your blog posts—is the exact skillset I have been searching for.” Gansey was about to say it was really Adam who carried the brunt of the effort, but his tongue stalled. He wanted to know where Whelk was going with this first, what possible opportunity lied before him. He’d involve Adam if it was worth it, he told himself.

“Where I’m going with this is, I have an idea for a website called Harvard Connection. Essentially, you’d create your own page as a sort of… self introduction. You know, an encompassing bio with your interests, pictures, who your other friends are, whatever.” He left a pause for Gansey to reply. Once more he had to suppress a burst of laughter; Gansey was the last person alive who could ever properly navigate cryptic social messages, but the unrestrained excitement leaking from Whelk’s face from the opportunity to explain himself further was… lacking in subtlety.   
Gansey could indulge him for now, “I don’t mean to offend, but how is that different from any other current social media platform? Why do I need another myspace account?”  
  
Whelk’s smile turned catlike, entirely satisfied with the question at hand, “Because you don’t need a harvard.edu email address to make a myspace account.” Gansey felt himself yield. This was an interesting development. Maybe Whelk was going somewhere with this. He raised an eyebrow as if to say go on. Whelk continued, “The whole site would be centered around the prestige of that address. You need it to use it, the driving force behind it all would be—"  
“Exclusivity,” Gansey finished, unable to help himself._  
Community. Belonging._  
“Right,” Whelk agreed, “And anyway, if there’s anything to fall back on—not to put anything indelicately but—girls like Harvard guys.” He finished with his same strange smile, but Gansey suddenly felt less inspired. He could think of one girl who didn’t like Harvard guys. “And I certainly know I’m in the minority of people who are willing to let your little stunt go by the wayside, if you can pick up what I’m implying,” he continued. The implication was that Gansey needed his image rehabilitated, which did not encourage him to regain his just vanished inspiration. While he certainly did not enjoy hurting anyone's feelings, and while he very much liked to be liked... Adam was on his side, and it was hysterical to pretend anyone else’s opinion mattered before his. And Adam thought it was funny. So that was that.  
  
“My point is, though, I’d like to work with you. We can talk details later, but with your skills and creativity, it’ll be a guaranteed success.” Whelk concluded, clasping his hands together. He really thought Gansey was gonna say yes.

Gansey took a beat. “I’ll think about it.”  
They sat still for just a moment before Gansey took his leave, standing from the beautiful couch and exiting the lovely, open-to-the-public break room.


	3. Chapter 3

Gansey’s walk back home was long and boring and he was an idiot that left his earbuds on his desk. It was unfortunate he couldn’t listen to music because of this, since there was nothing in the world he wanted to do less than be alone with his thoughts. With odd little pangs in his chest, his conversation with Whelk came back to him in waves. 

Was he making a mistake in turning down this offer? Was he throwing away an opportunity? How many more opportunities like this would he have? Was he wrong in his pride for thinking he had better things to do with his anxieties than devoting himself to some silly dating website with a man as ridiculous as Whelk? It was hard to convince himself he was wrong for thinking so, but it chilled him to the bone to think there was perhaps something to be earned from this that he was losing. He remembered the unexpected thrill that rushed through him when Whelk mentioned the exclusivity factor of his site. To be able to curate your social experience, to invite people in and shut others out, to establish your own private platform in which others would be at the mercy of whether or not you wanted them in… _That_ had been a good idea. It was unfortunate that for all of Whelk’s apparent intelligence he was so utterly laughable. 

_Though_, Gansey began to think, steps faltering, _what’s stopping me from expanding on this, something beyond that of harvard.edu?_   
An icy breeze sifted through him, sending chills across his skin. A moment passed, and he began walking much faster.

  
He suddenly found himself slamming an unyielding fist against Adam’s door. He needed to get the words swirling in his brain out before they left him entirely.  
Seconds passed, and without realizing it, his fist met open air, followed closely by a strong grip before it could fall any further.  
“Ganseyman! What’s with all this excitement?” The bright voice of Henry Cheng, owner of said strong grip, exclaimed like the lovely ringing of a bell.

Though Gansey didn’t have many to call a friend, he and Adam had found a wonderful companion in that of Henry. Adam especially clicked with him, where he was sensible and intelligent, Henry was senseless and intelligent. They bounced off each other in a way Gansey loved to listen to, their conversations operatic debates, and Henry would often reside in Adam’s room for this… In fact, he was wearing one of Adam’s sweaters in that exact moment. It suited him absolutely, the warm cream color bringing out the deep gold of his skin. Henry, Gansey often noticed, was especially handsome, with a dashing face and glorious hair. But if he ever graced campus with his presence, leaving the beautiful mansion that was his frat house, it was Adam’s dorm he would float over to. Gansey couldn’t blame him for that. 

It was odd, though, seeing the two of them together. It unnerved Gansey to see someone so utterly unlike Adam become so easily close to him. Henry was unbothered by Adam’s stoic disposition, completely able to unwind him with his own charming nonchalance. It wasn’t that Gansey felt threatened, it just made him… nervous. 

“Is Adam here?” He asked, nearly breathless from his power walk.  
And as if on cue, as if Gansey wanting it brought it into existence, Adam appeared around the corner of a doorway. And like always, the ever-present knot in Gansey’s chest unwound at the sight of him. His hair was damp from a shower, and he wore a thin, v-neck sweater that exposed the fine curves of his collarbones. His face warmed upon seeing Gansey, and Gansey felt as if he’d never catch his breath again.

“Hey, tiger!” Adam exclaimed, delighted in his own contained sort of way. ‘Tiger' was one of many nicknames he had for him, Gansey never acknowledging their presence in fear of Adam stopping. There was something grounding about hearing it now.   
“I didn’t realize you’d be coming over,” he continued easily, somehow teasing, “is there on occasion I’m forgetting?”  
“Maybe. I’m not sure yet, ’t’s why I’m here,” Gansey said, intentionally vague. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Henry to know, it was more that he wanted this to stay between him and Adam for now. 

Henry paid no attention to being left out. He tossed his head over to Adam, “Well, that would make two of you with news to share.” Gansey looked over at Adam blankly, his mission momentarily forgotten. If there was news to share, why hadn’t he told Gansey first? “News?” He asked, simply. Adam himself gave Henry a look, embarrassed, a glance that told him to shut up.   
Henry’s smile only grew, “Ah, seems I’m ruining the surprise. I was on my way out anyways.” He gave Gansey’s shoulders a few strong pats. “Don’t be a stranger, Gansey,” he said, then flicked an elegant wave to Adam, who called out, “Wash that before you give it back!” as Henry went out the door.

The door clicked shut and they were alone again. Adam laughed through his nose, shaking his head, Gansey missing the punchline. He leaned against the doorframe, hands resting in his pockets as his body settled into his new position. There was a content-ness to his face that Gansey didn’t entirely recognize, a look of satisfaction that hadn’t made a home in his features yet, his whole demeanor relaxed. On the other side of the room, Gansey couldn’t even bring himself to sit down, the rush going through him unresting, only increased by having all of Adam’s attention. But Adam had news first. Gansey could wait his turn. He raised his eyebrows along with his palms to ask for further elaboration. Adam dimpled.

“I got punched by The Phoenix,” he sighed, smiling with teeth.

The Phoenix. As in, one of the six final clubs, The Phoenix. And Gansey knew he should’ve been smiling too, he knew there was no-one in the world more worthy of this than Adam; Relentlessly solid and capable Adam Parrish, who had learned to be this way out of survival had just earned another fruit from his labor, and Gansey should’ve been smiling too.

Even back at Aglionby, before Adam ever gave Gansey the treasured gift of his attention, Gansey could clearly see the roots of his past, like tendons in his hands, jutting out and flexed just beneath a thin surface. For as long as he’d known Adam, he wished to run a finger along their ridges, but he did not realize the depths they reached until Adam allowed him to know, until he had earned that trust. And upon understanding, Gansey soon figured why Adam kept himself otherwise unknown.

They were an ugly, intertwined tangle of pride and disgust and fear and perseverance that grew in spite of the dry dirt of poverty and abuse they grew from. His unbreakable sturdiness that Gansey dug his nails into was groomed out of necessity. The broadness of his shoulders, beautiful in their strength, grew from learning the grueling dance of walking on eggshells as a child, from the three jobs he worked to keep his feeble scholarship at Aglionby, from his relentless studying to ensure acceptance into an Ivy League in his desperate plan to escape himself, from forcing the blades in his back wide to insist the image of carelessness he would never know, from carrying the burden of a life Gansey would never know. 

And it crushed Gansey to realize that despite his adoration for his hometown Henrietta, Virginia, there was a whole other side of the tracks that was only shown to him by befriending Adam. They could pretend that Gansey’s Gansey-ness was enough, but it was a difficult endeavor to ignore the tension that laced every passing moment between them. He was still a product of himself, of his family. Adam didn’t ignore it.

This was a concrete sign that Adam was right in all that he was doing, that the torture of his upbringing was finally being repaid, that he was not wasting himself. Anyone in a final club was someone, and Adam deserved to be someone. The relaxation of his disposition made sense in that it wasn’t actually relaxation: it was relief.

But Gansey, for all his endless love, didn’t smile. Something felt like it was going to burst within him. It wasn’t…envy, it couldn’t have been. No, it was the feeling that something out of his control was beginning, he could sense it, and a great well of panic caved out his chest.  
And Adam, instincts perfectly attuned for feeling a room’s energy change, flickered. His smile wavered, and it shattered Gansey.

“I mean, it’s just the first step of a four part process, the first punch party is tomorrow so anything can happen, but, you know…” he trailed off. It was so unlike himself to be so outwardly self-conscious.  
A smile ripped through Gansey’s face in retaliation, tearing through his lips and cheeks as genuinely delighted as he could manage. “You got punched by The Phoenix!” He responded breathlessly, embracing whatever excitement he could manage. He hated how fake it felt, but if Adam noticed, he didn’t let it on. He smiled, bashful and wonderful.  
“I’ll ride the wave of even being given the letter for now—but what’d you wanna talk to me about?” He asked, diverting from himself.

… It seemed all very silly to Gansey now. He wanted to think that maybe he was mistaken about everything and should just hang out with his best friend for the rest of the day, pretend he was not vexed by possibilities. But really he just needed to center himself. The ratty couch pushed against the wall would have to do. He sat and took a deep breath, exhaling whatever bullshit entered him a few moments ago. Adam took his usual spot in the equally ratty chair across from him. He mimicked Gansey’s previous expression, eyebrows high, palms open. It was comforting.

“Why were people so drawn to the algorithm we made?” He asked as a simple starter, needing to be meticulous with how he pitched this. Adam scoffed, “people are mean. And rich people are easy to make fun of, even if, you know, the taunters are also rich.”“This is true, but so what? What made our website any different from just mocking the general concept of the rich?” Adam took a moment to consider, eyebrows furrowed.   
Click. “It was mocking people they knew,” he answered, cautious, unsure where Gansey was going with this. 

“Exactly. An entire campus was brought together solely because they wanted to see people they knew online, even if the joke was at their own expense. They wanted to see the joke for themselves, see who’s expense it costed, compare their interactions with their other friends. So what if we made a website based on that concept: bringing the entire social experience of college and putting it on one platform. It would have all the usual profiles filled with common interests or whatever, but _that_ would be the driving force behind it,” Gansey further explained. He waited for Adam to finish the punchline.

“Being in on the joke. Being included,” Adam completed, the look of satisfaction in understanding rising in his face. And Gansey wanted to scream with catharsis because Adam got it, as always, he understood him perfectly.

“Exclusivity,” Gansey elaborated. _Not_ being included was just important of a factor, but he chose not to say this aloud. 

“Thats good, that’s really good,” Adam said, leaning forward and nodding to himself. Gansey could see his supercomputer brain was already working through all the ways this was a good idea. It was validating; if he hadn’t seen the cogs turning he would know he had been wrong.  
“So what’s next?” He asked, always pragmatic. Gansey didn’t particularly want to say what was next though. It was the clear next step, an implied necessity throughout his loose scramblings of a plan, but he wasn’t sure he was delicate enough for it. He had a history of miscalculations in regards to sensitivity. “Well. We’ll need to rent some servers to get it online for the longterm,” he said, trying not to sound too careful.

They regarded each other, looking one another in the eyes. It was a bizarre moment of awareness that the one with the trust fund wasn’t the one who had money to spare.

The summer right before freshmen year at Harvard, Adam had landed himself $100,000 from investments in oil futures. His friends claimed supernatural, psychic prediction abilities, but really all Adam predicted was which futures would be most profitable based on hurricane patterns. Simple meteorology, he and his brilliant mind insisted. Most of his earnings were spent towards tuition, but he still had a sizable remainder.  
This was unlike Gansey who, besides whatever money he earned doing assorted side gigs, had exceptionally little money of his own. His parents, who could never fully convince themselves to trust and respect their son, kept his implied wealth at arms length. None of it was his to spend, and especially not for something as risky as a self-made investment in a profit that was only worth as much as its potential.

“Done, easy,” Adam said cooly, as if Gansey would’ve missed whatever flickered in his eyes as he said it. “This makes you CFO, you know,” he tested, not feeling soothed.   
“Don’t insult me,” Adam replied, mouth curled. And suddenly everything was okay again. More than okay. And something was starting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell idk how to write dialogue yet. also, I'm sorry if the formatting is frustrating to read bfdhjbhks, I'm trying my best to make it as easily absorbable as possible


	4. Chapter 4

It was all a matter of getting the job done after that.

Noah joined the team, his programming skills and ability to shut the world around him out as he worked becoming a much appreciated asset; Adam balanced knowing when to increase funds and investing when necessary, fine-tuning the large, unedited masses of code delivered to him from Noah, and completing all the intricate rituals of getting accepted into The Phoenix simultaneously; Even Henry, who Gansey ended up telling anyway, contributed by planting the seed of a new, innovative social networking platform in his elite circle of friends.  
  
Gansey himself started wearing his glasses again out of convenience, his obsessive brain focusing only on putting all of the little pieces together, contributing to programming when he could, designing the layout of the site, doing anything he could get his hands on. He worked tirelessly, his laptop was on hand at all times, the walls of their dorm covered entirely with white boards filled with data, and paper after paper of information, and graphs, and failed ideas to avoid, and concepts to pursue.

The only reason he remembered to eat was because Adam stayed by his side to remind him. Same went for sleeping.  
There was one particularly grueling weekend where Adam had found him wrapped in a blanket on the floor, laptop screen burning holes into his heavy, tired eyes. Gansey had been so exhausted, his mind didn’t even process Adam turning on his speakers to play soft music while making him a cup of tea in his favorite mug. After handing him the warm drink and folding himself up right beside him, Adam asked Gansey to explain what he was currently working on, distracting him from looking at the screen.  
The combination of factors (including his own monumentally boring, hour long recap), put him directly to sleep against Adam’s shoulder. He only vaguely recalled this later, the memory feeling like a sweet dream he’d imagined.

  
The finishing touch came to Gansey after Noah pestered him for information on a girl in Gansey’s world history class, specifically whether she was single or not.  
Minutes later, he burst into Adam’s dorm, laptop already pried open, explanation already bubbling over to an unfazed Adam, who was reading on the ratty chair. “Fucking— Parrish! I don’t know how I didn’t think of it sooner!” He cried, throwing himself on the ratty couch to type the necessary addition to the nearly polished code.  
“Try again,” Adam said as he closed his book. Gansey didn’t look up from his computer as he replied, “What is the most influential thing to any college student? Why do you sit where you sit, take the classes you take, why do you do anything at all? What are you hoping to gain?”  
Adam laughed, not missing a beat, “Someone’s attention, right?”  
Gansey nodded. Right. He looked up at Adam. Adam was looking back at him. He looked back down to his keyboard. “So, why not speed up the process?”  
“You wanna tape signs on people that say whether or not they’re available?”  
“No, I want people to use the relationship status feature I’m adding.”  
This time, he took the beat. “You’re right, I don’t know why you didn’t think of that sooner.”

So one month and $1,500 later, the website launched. They named it “TheFacebook” in reference to the Harvard facebook Gansey hacked into for their original algorithm. His and Adam’s names were on the masthead, intentionally unnecessarily cocky. They both thought it was funny. They both knew how much it meant to one another.

Henry’s contribution and Adam’s new connections to members from The Phoenix became integral: it began to grow faster than any of them had ever expected. Soon, “facebook me,” was a common phrase on campus. Soon, Gansey was given more passing glances, more attention, more appreciation. Adam’s reputation grew just as rapidly, his natural intrigue only adding to his increased popularity, different to Gansey’s open palmed charm that was already open to the general public.  
It was surreal. It was happening.

But before they could consider spreading to other campuses, or whether they should advertise the site, before they made any active decision beyond allowing it to grow naturally: they had a party to go to.  
Party was still perhaps the wrong word for it; parties at the Litchfield mansion were more akin to galas than anything else. Part of the fun was the camp, the drama of just being in the ridiculously gorgeous building filled with equally ridiculous and gorgeous people.  
Gansey and Adam were unnamed guests of honor. However, since there was essentially a party every night at the mansion, their presence was practically circumstantial and otherwise unmentioned. Though, they were not unnoticed.

Very soon into the evening, they were separated, Gansey being whisked away by Henry and his crew, caught up entirely in their whimsy and effortless excitement. Drunk on shots and verbosity, he danced very closely and spoke very closely and lingered very closely to people he was fairly certain weren’t strangers. Henry and him were suddenly much closer friends.  
He liked the closeness, liked feeling the warmth of bodies and scent of perfumes and solidness of hands; he liked feeling devoured by another’s physicality, liked feeling felt. It was exhilarating to drink in their aliveness after weeks of cold, centered focus. Or was it longer than just weeks? Why did it feel like he was being fed by this? How hungry had he been?  
Though, he was beginning to feel hungry for real. He needed a snack.  
He exited himself from someone’s lap, and stumbled around the mansion in desperate search for food.  
It took him many agonizing moments, but it was with tremendous triumph he found the longed for kitchen. He located the fridge with a sigh of relief—which was quickly interrupted by his heart shoving itself into his throat.

Laying on a counter, petite body able to lounge perfectly across its length, surrounded by a divine group of women, was Blue.  
She easily took a shot of something clear and sparkling, and when she looked up from the little glass, laying eyes on Gansey, she grimaced.  
“Blue,” he said breathlessly, “I didn’t know you were friends with Litchfield types.” He was genuinely surprised at her presence; he honestly didn’t know what a girl like her was doing in a place like this.  
She grinned at him, wry and mocking, “Can’t say I’m surprised you are.” The other girls giggled. And it was odd, because it should’ve stung, but he only felt something frantic building within him. This was his chance to make things better.  
“C-can I talk to you? Alone?” He asked, quiet. She had the kindness to look simultaneously apologetic and strained. “I’d rather not.” A small whine bubbled inside his throat he tried to choke down, “Please, just for a minu—““Gansey, I already said everything that needed to be said. There’s nothing you can do to change my mind. If you’ve somehow learned to be a human being and are able to think beyond yourself, good for you, but don’t torture me with the test trial,” She interrupted. He fought the immediate urge to cry.  
“I’m not as selfish as you think I am,” He said, his voice watery.  
She sighed heavily, frustrated. “Even if that was true, I’m still not interested. I don’t have to talk with you just because you want me to. No matter how much you wish it did, shit just doesn’t work like that, your majesty. Now please, let me enjoy these Litchfield girls in peace.”

And for all his flowery vocabulary, he couldn’t think of anything to say.  
“Alright,” he resigned himself, and walked away, hearing the other women laugh as he left.

He walked aimlessly through the mansion, but with definite, intentional, internal direction. He needed to see Adam that very moment before he shattered.  
He had just wanted to make things better, just wanted to explain himself, or to apologize, or _something_. But apparently, it was no use, apparently he was too cruel and evil and awful to be listened to. It actually irritated him a little. And that made him feel worse. And he was so drunk. And he just wanted to see Adam. Despite everything, despite what he’d just been told, he still unabashedly yearned for it. He’d make it better, he always did.

He stumbled into what looked to be some kind of sitting room, empty enough for individual conversations to still be clearly audible but full enough for his appearance to be unremarkable, with velvety walls and heavy bookshelves and slick leather couches—  
His chest heaved with shock, heart suddenly pulsing violently, threatening to burst. Sitting pretty on one of the couches was Adam: beautiful Adam, elegant Adam, lanky and strong and capable and brilliant and _his_ Adam. And beside him, one arm wrapped along the back of the couch and over his shoulders, leaning in close, dark eyelashes canopying his gaze, was the devil.  
No, not the devil, he confirmed with a blink, but close enough.

Two inches taller than Adam, he was dark and looming, a shadow of a man wearing all black, intricate coils of ink snaking and hooking across his exposed, pale skin. His eyes, though, frightened Gansey. He’d never seen anything like them. They weren’t Adam’s comforting rainstorm, weren’t droplets hitting the surface of a sidewalk; they were a tundra, a wasteland. And they were starving.

“So, you invented TheFacebook or some shit, right?” He asked, lazily. He had an accent Gansey couldn’t place, a mix of something Northern-European and something Southern.  
“Close,” Adam replied, smirk growing, cockier than Gansey had ever seen. He wasn’t intimidated in the slightest, and Gansey was overwhelmed with adoring fascination of him. Of course he wasn’t afraid, he’d been to hell and back already, he could handle the devil.  
“Co-founder and CFO,” He finished, and Gansey felt physically sick upon hearing the tone of his voice. He was enjoying himself.  
“Ah, business major?”  
“Economics.” He leaned in closer, grinning, “you didn’t study for this test, did you?”  
“I was never an academic,” the guy said with a shrug.  
“Then what are you?”  
He grinned back at Adam, mouthful of shark teeth. “A dreamer, mostly. A dropout, entirely.”  
Adam laughed.

And Gansey had to rip himself away from the scene, because for once he was able to connect the dots as quickly as Adam would, and the expression on his face told Gansey all he needed to know about where this was going. He couldn’t stomach bearing witness to it.

Actually, he couldn’t stomach anything at the moment. The sudden profound realization dawned on him that the only thing he had consumed in the last ten hours was alcohol, and soon his body would be devoid of that too if he didn’t get some air.  
He needed air. He needed to breathe. Was he not breathing? Why did he need to breathe, why wasn’t he breathing? He choked out a gasp. Better. Okay. At least he wasn’t hyperventilating. Still, his chest remained, like his rapidly throbbing heart was a stone lodged between his lungs, crushed within his ribcage.

He opened a door to what he wished was an exit, but was in fact a bathroom. It was good enough for the time being.  
Hastily locking the door with trembling fingers, he shut himself away. His head fell against the door, a deep, mighty sigh escaping him, unclogging his chest. Gingerly, he turned himself around so his back was leaning against the wood, and he met his own eyes in the mirror across the small room from him.  
He hardly recognized himself. His cheeks and mouth were flushed a brilliant crimson; his thick mop of hair he spent an exorbitant amount of time controlling daily had plastered itself to his forehead, tangled waves reigning free once again; his neck was damp with sweat, a deep maroon splotch marked where his pulse was; and behind his glasses—which in and of themselves was a shock to his system—his normally warm eyes looked pale and glassy, the purple stains on the thin skin beneath them only enhancing how… ghostly he looked. A feverish and gaunt ghost. He was such a messy thing, something unrestrained trying to claw out of him. Perhaps something even a little tigerish.  
He watched his own face crumple.


	5. Chapter 5

As the weeks passed, their userbase continued to grow with monumental speed. Though TheFacebook had not been exclusive to Harvard, the catalyst of their success originated from the entirety of campus switching to make it their sole form of connection to other students. So, why not commit to that notion for the time being? They reached out to other Ivy Leagues, pitching it as a campus network. It all came back down to feeling left out; if Yale students saw their Columbia friends using one particular network, apparently there was a hole in need of filling.  
Their numbers rose to fifty thousand users. It was not so much ‘starting’ anymore as it was ‘happening’. About to happen, starting to happen. There were still calls to be made, though.

“What?” Gansey asked, not realizing he was being spoken to until his brain registered the quiet air around him. He looked back up to Adam, who was sitting across from him on Gansey’s bed, curled up and leaning against the wall.  
“I said,” he restarted, mouth crooked, “that I think we need to start advertising the site.”  
Gansey didn’t respond immediately, and in the beat he took, soft clucking came from the cage on the floor beside them. Though Adam was now an official member of The Phoenix, it did not mean the tests were over. As part of finalizing his initiation, hazing him for hopefully the last time, he was required to keep a chicken safe with him at all times for a week. Ronan had taken to calling the chicken Chainsaw.  
Ronan, as in, Adam’s new boyfriend, Ronan Lynch.

Gansey could not recall much from his night at the Litchfield mansion, nor would he want to if he had the option, but the lingering feeling of rot in his chest didn’t escape him. The origins of this festering embarrassment was palpable despite the murkiness of their place in his head; Blue and Adam and starvation of all facets. That’s all there was.  
And though Adam did eventually mention to Gansey he was seeing someone, Gansey would never admit that humiliatingly, mortifyingly, he had already known because he had been obsessively checking Adam’s relationship status on their own goddamn website. He would not admit to himself why he had been looking in the first place, what answer he was trying to find.

Ronan’s presence was an unavoidable constant after this. It stirred something deep within him to see Adam—who drank from physical touch more than water once he felt safe enough to reach out—take root in Ronan’s hands and arms and shoulders. How Adam ignored the ‘KEEP OUT’ signs plastered on his body was beyond Gansey, and that somehow made it worse. He wouldn’t dare insult Adam by insinuating he was naive enough to avoid getting involved with a dangerous guy, which meant that there really was something beyond all that ice.  
Adam had gotten to know this guy, and inexplicably, it hurt.

And it wasn’t that Gansey had meant to ignore Adam, it just so happened that he found himself lacking the energy to listen. Even worse, he wasn’t sure if Adam was right about this.

“Why would we do that?” He asked, honest. Adam squinted at him ever so slightly, as if this was an unnecessary question. “So we can monetize the site, start generating some revenue,” he replied with the tone that this should be obvious.  
“And you want to do that with advertisements?” He reiterated, slow.  
“What I _want_ is to get back what I gave. If that has to be done from ads, why wouldn’t we?”  
And Gansey couldn’t completely argue against this, it was understandable that Adam would want to see some sort of physical profit, especially since he had skin in the game; this just felt like the wrong time to do it.

“Because… ads insinuate a finished product,” he began to answer, wanting to be cautious with his words, but still unsure how to vocalize his doubt. “They say, ‘now that we finished whatever the hell this is, come buy stuff,’ which is already the wrong impression we want to give. But I think… more than that, people hate being told what to do. TheFacebook is—well, I don’t know—cool. Ads aren’t cool.”  
Adam considered this, wrinkled face not quite convinced. “So when will it be finished?”  
This surprised Gansey. Of all people, Adam should know a product like this would never be “finished.” And he was missing his point anyway, which was that people wouldn’t like seeing their trendy, exclusive space invaded. They’d look like sellouts, which was not cool.  
“It won’t be. That’s like asking when something like fashion is finished.”  
Adam smiled then. “Fashion, really, _you_ wanna talk about fashion?” he asked, glancing down at the pink polo and khaki shorts Gansey favored. Gansey ignored the unveiled insult, “I want to drive home the point that sometimes things don’t have end goals—and that we shouldn’t start settling yet.”  
“Settling… So what should we do?”  
Gansey shrugged. “Keep expanding. See where it goes—I hear the west coast is in need of a new network,” he added, hoping for lightness but falling into a beg for approval. Adam’s face softened, a sign he was gonna let this go for now. “How d’you expect to tap into that utterly untapable market?”  
Gansey smiled, “we’ve made it this far with only our wits, I think you must be kinder to us.”

Adam smiled with him, then re-opened the book he’d been reading before they started talking (it was a new one, Gansey noticed, the spine yet to be cracked like all his others). He stretched his legs out over Gansey’s as he settled back into reading position, Gansey then reaching for his laptop so he could more easily pretend he wasn’t aware of it. Chainsaw clucked.

He checked his email for the sake of it, though, if he had known what he would find he wouldn’t have been so frivolous. His stomach lurched with shock and urgency, tensing his whole body.  
Adam instantly noticed, “What? What’s wrong?”  
Nothing was wrong, actually. Nothing at all. He clicked open the titular email of importance with a shaking hand, eyes wide as he read:

_‘Richard Gansey,_   
_I think you should know I’m gonna be in New York next week. I’m tired of California, in_   
_need of a distraction, and a friend says you may be in need of some mutual benefits._   
_I’d love to see you for myself anyways_   
_\- Kavinsky’_

Kavinsky, as in Joseph Kavinsky. As in, founded Napster when he was only 19, sparking one of the most influential movements for the music industry, simultaneously poisoning his reputation because of the following legal procedures and making a name for himself with such greatness he later founded two more companies based on it alone, which he, of course, later crashed out of. Though, perhaps even more so than his business endeavors, the entirety of himself was famous, famous for the sake of it, as if he were built for the very notion of being known. Anyone and everyone could recognize him, liable to adore him.  
There was nothing he hadn’t been accused of doing, no situation he hadn’t talked his way out of, no amount of money he couldn’t pay, no deal he couldn’t slip out of just as effortlessly as he wormed himself in: a king amongst men, a god amongst businessmen. _That_ Kavinsky.  
And he wanted to meet Gansey.  
“Think I found a way to infiltrate Stanford,” he said flatly.

The next week could not come fast enough.

They planned to meet at the 66, a restaurant in Manhattan that drew in a young demographic of people who exclusively wore Prada. Adam, of course, would be joining them as well—and to Gansey’s utter shock, so was Ronan.

As it turned out, Ronan and Kavinsky had history together. “Just some high school bullshit,” he clarified with a wink, as if only to make Adam snicker and to perturb Gansey. Which it did. Though they were no longer close (“Like, seriously, not at fucking all,” according to Ronan) their paths still crossed _just enough_ for it to not be weird for Ronan to give him Gansey’s email.  
And Gansey couldn’t not be appreciative of that, it was an incredible opportunity that had been practically handed to him. Though, it was a strange show of acknowledgement to Gansey’s place as Adam’s best friend, as if saying, ‘You’re the dude that’s been with my boyfriend this whole time and now you’re helping his life for the better, so you better not fuck it up.’  
It was simultaneously gratifying and aggravating; he wasn’t exactly planning on fucking this up anyway, nor was he asking for some sort of consolation for Ronan taking his place as the person in the forefront of Adam’s thoughts. Not that Gansey was bothered by this either or anything. But still, despite this, Gansey liked the implication that he was important and necessary and worthy of anyone’s time or attention. And really, it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass even if he wanted to.

Which meant that, of course, for all proprietary and politeness’s sake, Ronan would join them for dinner. _Though_, Gansey noted, _it wouldn’t be my first instinct to refer to Ronan as either._

So, the three of them sat at a table as their odd little trio, patiently waiting for Kavinsky’s arrival. Well, Gansey was being patient, at least.  
“He’s twenty five minutes late,” Adam remarked, coldly. Something about the way he said it, the way his back stiffened, piqued some restlessly curious part in Gansey’s brain. He wouldn’t have expected Adam to be so blatantly dismissive of such an important chance to network. Besides, “I can stand to wait twenty five more minutes.” He knew Adam would know what he meant. Adam’s head nodded with consideration, “still. He’s not a god.”  
“Only mostly,” Gansey replied, deja vu suddenly lingering.  
“What, can’t handle a little hazing?” Ronan piped up at the same time.  
Adam chose to acknowledge his comment over Gansey’s, “I’m a member of The Phoenix, and I’ve also lived my own life: yeah, I can handle hazing, but I won’t tolerate disrespect.”  
  
Gansey didn’t know if he should say something, this seemed like oddly dangerous territory. The very notion of challenging Adam rather than just defending himself like Gansey was used to seemed dangerous.  
  
“You know I don’t know what the fuck the phoenix is,” Ronan replied. This particularly struck Gansey as rude; being a Phoenix member was very important to Adam, why would he just disregard it like that?  
But as he thought this, Adam sighed out a laugh. “Thank god you don’t, I don’t think I could stand you if you did.”  
“And you barely stand me as it is,” Ronan said with a smug grin.  
And Gansey wasn’t really sure what just happened. How had Ronan so perfectly dismantled Adam’s bitterness? With mockery no less? Familiar fears rustled within him once again, but he forced them to settle back in their cage deep in his chest.

He didn’t have time to think about it anyways, because there was sudden commotion towards the entranceway. Whispers and exclamations alike rang through the restaurant, and Gansey’s blood turned to ice.  
Shattering though the crowd that had developed around him, wearing a dingy white wifebeater beneath a custom tailored blazer, was Kavinsky.  
He strode directly over to their table, smile sickeningly, deliciously gleaming. Every step he took was a powerful command of attention, thunder booming around him. It was odd and exhilarating and unnerving to see lightning trapped in human skin, the threads barely stitched together in a meek attempt to contain everything he was.  
It was impossible not to notice he was very beautiful as well, beautiful in the way only lightning could be; transcended danger, a streak of divinity amongst a storm, a flash of something too brilliant and bright for human eyes to linger on. And it struck Gansey, suddenly, that he reminded him the littlest bit of Adam. Ethereal and other. Humanity concentrated, stripped raw.  
His features themself were nothing to ignore either.

“You must be Richard,” he said as he flung a beautifully long and knobby hand to Gansey. Gansey promptly stood, exchanging his own inferior hand as he corrected, “Gansey, please.” Kavinksy’s grip was strong. He released Gansey, then moved to Adam, extending his hand to him as well. “Parrish?” He goaded rather than asked. “Adam,” he corrected with less humor, taking his hand in turn. The tightness of his grip did not go unnoticed to Gansey.  
“Lynch,” he finished with wry mirth as he turned to acknowledge Ronan, who just flicked a small salute to him without standing.  
He sat before them on the opposite side of the table, and noticed the emptiness before them. “They haven’t fed you yet?” And despite the seemingly hospitable nature of the question, there was an inflection of mockery. The shine of his teeth wouldn’t allow for any homeliness. “We were waiting for you,” Adam snapped back. Kavinsky’s lip snarled into a smile, head cocked slightly. Gansey couldn’t tell what he was thinking.  
  
“Tori,” Kavinsky called to a passing waitress, tall and skinny and with a smile made for tips. “Hey, baby boy,” she cooed at him, stopping by his side as he began to rattle off a long list of assorted entrées for her to bring. Gansey respected the confidence in which he spoke; for all his own potential leadership capabilities, he had trouble _knowing_ he was right, even with something as inconsequential as a dinner order. He could tell Kavinsky didn’t have that same issue. Tori finished writing everything down on a little notepad with a quick flick of her wrist. “Anything to drink?”  
Kavinsky instantly turned to Ronan, “what’s your choice in poison tonight, Ro?”  
_Ro?_ Gansey held back a grimace.  
Ronan didn’t flinch. “An appletini,” he replied, slit eyes and grin suggesting an inside joke passing between them. “Perfect, four appletinis then,” Kavinsky concluded with the same mischief.

With Tori gone, Kavinsky leaned back in his seat, as if to take in the sight of the three of them once more.  
“So, what can I do for you?”

And so the dinner went on. Despite his prompted question, the evening was mostly dedicated to Kavinsky explaining in extensive detail his endeavors in Silicone Valley, how California was the greatest worst thing that’s ever happened to him; all of his legal pursuits, how he had to file for bankruptcy in the midst of lawsuits against one, how private investigators were hired to make shit up against him just to kick him out from from the other; the magnificent name he beautifully crafted for himself despite the baggage surrounding it.  
Gansey was completely enthralled by all of it, too fascinated to even speak beyond short remarks or exclamations. It was difficult to even grasp that he was in this situation to begin with, the fancifulness of it catching up to him, leaving him breathless before a joke from Kavinksy knocked the wind from him once more. Comically, he felt the need to prop himself up, wanted to cradle his cheek in his hand and sigh and swoon as he spoke.  
He recounted his life as if it were a fairytale, story after story, and Gansey devoured it all, moth to a flame.

Eventually, though, the conversation trailed back to TheFacebook. Kavinsky curious about their strategies for expansion, on their technique for ensuring continuous popularity. Adam, who had been relatively quiet for the rest of their dinner, spoke deliberately and expansively on this. A stranger wouldn’t be able to hear it, but there was an uptightness in his voice that gave Gansey chills. And Kavinsky, as if sensing this, always had a follow up question, always had means to get him to further explain himself. Adam was unflinching.

“And what if I think it’s time to start monetizing? What if I go make dinner plans with potential advertisers after this?” He asked in retaliation, heat slipping into his tone.  
“Oh, well, that depends,” Kavinksy began, his voice and smile coated with greasy smugness. It did something wild to Gansey’s insides, a conglomeration of protective defensiveness towards Adam and more stinging admiration of his confidence and something else a little less respectable. “Why do you think that?” He finished. Adam’s forehead wrinkled. “Because this is a developing business, and businesses make money,” he stated, flat, like he was tired of explaining himself.

“See, and that’s your problem. This is almost a business. Really, you don’t know what it is yet at all. What it could be, what it can be. You wanna, what, flood your users with fuckin’ mountain dew ads or some shit? For the sake of making a few bucks?” Adam didn’t respond, which just gave Kavinsky more room to play. “Let’s say you do do that though. You cash in, your pretty little, exclusive website is suddenly bombarded with Disneyland or whatever the fuck. Sure, you make some money, hell, you might even make great money, but you know what else you’ll do?”  
_Alienate our users,_ Gansey instantly thought.  
“Piss off your users by letting corporate hands touch their shit. That isn’t cool, man. Your thing is _cool_ right now, and that’s an asset you don’t wanna lose.” As he spoke, Gansey felt a sickening righteousness flush through him. _Yes, exactly!_  
“But that money was worth it, right?” He asked, rhetorical, “Yeah, sure it was, if you’re okay with only making a million…”  
There was a clearly intentioned pause. The same thought bubbled between them, only a million? And it was crazy how, despite seemingly grinning the whole evening, Kavinsky still managed to make this one different. It was self-satisfied and coolheaded as he said, “when you could be making a billion.”

And a stillness went over all of them.

“Because that’s where your stakes are at, man, for real. So go right ahead and miss out, race to last place if you want,” he laughed airily as he said it. Adam remained silent. Gansey couldn’t blame him. _A billion dollars…_ He wanted to take Adam’s hand in his own, to ground himself in the midst of this ecstasy, but also to share the thrill that raced through him, have a moment to acknowledge how incredible it was that they had done this together, were continuing to do this together. He wanted to be close with him so, so badly. His hand remained on his knee.  
“But hey, this isn’t my shit. You make whatever bad decisions you want—though, now that I’m reminded of it, if I can offer you one more word of advice: drop the ‘The’ just “Facebook’. It’s cleaner,” he finished, and Ronan snickered.

Dinner ended soon after that, with Kavinsky picking up the check and insisting he and Gansey would talk soon. Gansey was utterly floored.

“I have a bad feeling about him, Gans. Something guttural,” Adam said when they got back to Gansey’s dorm, both settling on his bed like they normally did. Gansey felt close to crazed after the evening, so without thinking, he said, “Really? That surprises me.” A zip of adrenaline shot up his chest as he said it. It was too close to confrontation, and it was shocking to hear himself say anything like that aloud. He wasn’t even sure why he said it, where exactly he was going with it. Adam just gave him a look, as if daring him to explain.  
He didn’t take long to consider. “He and Lynch just seem awfully similar to me, that’s all—I can see how they became friends.” This was mostly true, disregarding the implied distrust of Kavinsky. It wasn’t that he trusted Kavinksy, at least not exactly, it was more that he admired his brilliance, his allure, made him exceptionally interesting, like Gansey would be a fool for ignoring him. Even more important, he was interested in Gansey as well. But the iciness, the arrogance, the danger: that was all Ronan. And as he continued to consider this, the heat under his skin intensified.  
Adam scoffed, “You say this like you know Ronan.”  
“And you do?”

A moment passed, eyes locked.

“Gansey, what are we talking about right now?” Adam asked, and there was a weariness in his voice that broke Gansey out of whatever just came over him. He shook his head, flinching at himself; he was taking this too far for no reason. Being an asshole for the sake of it. “Nothing, I don’t know, I just need to think.”  
“As if that’s ever solved any of your problems,” Adam replied. And Gansey couldn’t tell if he was joking. His lip was curled but his eyes were cold. Infected, Gansey thought, by Ronan’s. And this was wrong. But he didn’t know how to right it.  
“Replacing a problem with a new problem is still solving the original issue at hand.”  
Adam rolled his eyes with vibrato, an indication that the joke was over and milked for all it was worth. He sank further into the bed, digging his mp3 player from his pocket.

“Putting up ads won’t solve any issue either,” Gansey blurted out before he could stop himself. “As if that’s even the issue anymore,” Adam replied instantly, not looking up from untangling his earbuds.  
“What’s the issue?” Gansey asked, genuinely caught off guard by that response.  
“We don’t need him,” he said, softly, looking at Gansey with tired eyes. It was so quietly devastating Gansey didn’t know what to do. Yet… he definitely didn’t want to apologize. What did he have to be sorry for? Developing a valuable connection? Receiving precious business advice? _Hurting Adam’s feelings,_ a small voice in his head chimed in. But why should Adam be hurt? This was a good thing.  
“I don’t want to pass anything by yet,” Gansey finally replied. Adam’s mouth twitched as if he wanted to say something else, but he instead shrugged the entire conversation off with a flick of his eyebrow. He continued to untangle his earbuds. Gansey picked up his laptop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy, I’ve been trying reeeeaaally hard to not just copy the movie word for word, but this chapter was testing me for some reason. The fashion… the god comments… the appletinis… how can I NOT avoid that? Also, idk why it took me so long to update this chapter, I feel like my timing was pretty good before. Oh well, this one is a thousand words longer than the others, so I hope that helped make the wait worth it <3


	6. Chapter 6

_‘You have to come to California, Gansey. The energy, the people, you’ll fucking thrive.’_

Amongst the hundreds of emails and phone calls he and Kavinsky had already somehow managed to share, Gansey could not shake this one line. The sureness of it nestled in his bones, affirming something he didn’t realize he was asking for. Though, it was impossibly frightening to feel like he’d probably follow Kavinsky anywhere if he asked. And yet, there he was, _asking_. Gansey didn’t think he could say no if he tried.

“Eight hundred ninety-three,” Noah called from the other side of the room, breaking Gansey’s stream of thought. The two had been refreshing the total membership number for about an hour now, waiting for the long-awaited hundred thousand mark. Which reminded him, he had meant to invite Adam over so he could watch with them. Really, he’d been meaning to call him anyway.  
As he thought it, the door to their room burst open, startling Gansey up from his bed. Storming into the room, a coiled knot of blistering tension, was Adam.  
“Adam wh—“ Gansey began but was cut off by Adam slamming a newspaper into his chest, pushing past him to collapse onto the bed. Hesitantly, Gansey unfolded it, reveling it to be a Crimson article— Harvard’s newspaper. He glanced over to Adam, then back to the article, then to Noah who hadn’t looked up from his computer, back to the article.  
He skimmed it, catching a few keywords: Adam Parrish, Facebook, Co-Founder and CFO, forced cannibalism, animal cruelty. Gansey reread those last two notes more carefully. Apparently, before he no longer needed to keep Chainsaw with him anymore (before he gave her to Ronan), Adam had been seen feeding her chicken at a restaurant. The person who saw him was, of course, an animal rights activist. So here he was now, mashing one of Gansey’s pillows into his face.

And it was kind of funny.

Sure, Gansey should’ve probably been humiliated and entirely frustrated by this: they were a blossoming company that didn’t need any sort of scandal on their early track record, especially not involving someone as important as Adam.  
But it was still kind of funny.  
And how much damage could something like this cause, anyways? Adam was a phenomenal speaker, he’d be able to defend himself just fine. In the long run, it didn’t seem like such an issue, especially since it didn’t directly reflect Facebook as a company. Being associated with animal cruelty wasn’t the best image for them, obviously, but this would subside. They were college students after all, another club could’ve leaked it as a prank. Gansey’s anxiety was slim, though he couldn’t help but smile sadly at his crumbling best friend. It was rare for Adam to show this much outward signs of anger, but he supposed an exception could be made when the anger was directed towards himself. Maybe Gansey could alleviate it.

“This is scathing,” he said, tone barely scraping the tooth of sarcasm.  
Adam dropped the pillow and sat upright. A deep breath escaped him, a mix of a laugh and an exasperated sigh. “I’m gonna have to _explain_ this to people! I have to explain to _everyone_ how I—god, this is fucking absur—I had to feed my chicken! She needed food! I don’t torture animals!” Adam stumbled over his words through a broken, bewildered smile.  
“It’s better to be accused of necrophilia,” Gansey noted. Adam’s head dropped into his hands. “It is better to be accused of necrophilia,” he groaned.  
“Nine hundred and fifty-six,” Noah said, ignoring both of them.  
Oh right, that reminded Gansey— “Well, this makes asking you to escape to California with me easier.”

And Adam froze. He raised his head from his hands, the exasperation melted from his face, expression raw. “What?” He asked, voice too quiet to indicate anything besides the inherent confusion of the question. Gansey didn’t think anything of it and instead kicked himself for ruining any elegance he could’ve had in asking Adam to come with him. Too late now.  
“California. I-I want to go— I think we need to go, actually. Noah included,” he said with a smile, looking up at his roommate who was now suddenly leaving the room with thinly veiled urgency. It didn’t bode well: Noah’s intuition was too good to leave a room for no reason.  
Adam gave him nothing.  
“Summer’s coming, champ. And clearly, you shouldn’t show your face around these parts anyways,” Gansey said, smile wavering.

“Gansey, I… I’ve—I’m really not in the position to, like… leave right now.”  
Gansey blinked at him. “What?” He said, stupidly, “What d’you mean?”  
Adam looked physically pained. “Well, I would’ve told you sooner but I didn’t realize I needed to: I just scored a really important internship— and I have summer classes I need to take, and meetings for the company, and…” he began then trailed off.  
_And a Ronan_, Gansey’s head filled in the blank. It was nauseating, and the hot sting of embarrassment began to prick at his neck. In all honesty, it hadn’t occurred to him that Adam wouldn’t come. He assumed it was a given, the two of them, together. The hurt of reality crashed into him like raindrops: tepid splatters that burst into an unforgiving storm.  
He breathed out slowly, counted to three. “It’s a non-decision, then,” He replied, soft, trying not to sound utterly heartbroken.

“You don’t have to go,” Adam said, filling the silence that fell over them. It stung. Gansey only barely held back a grimace as he replied, “Please don’t do that.”  
“Do what?” And Gansey knew he knew what, he could tell from the glint in his eyes, from their shared, innate defensiveness. “Don’t make me choose.”  
“It doesn’t have to be a choice, Gans.”  
“It isn’t since I’ve already made up my mind,” he spat back, astonished that Adam was pushing him like this.  
“No thanks to me, though,” his voice sounded splintered.  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gansey asked slow, the words feeling like poison spreading on his tongue.  
“Some bastard tells you what to do and you think you can just-just pack me up for the fucking ride, right?”  
“I thought you’d want to come!” Gansey guffawed, utterly shocked.  
“Of course you thought I wou— Christ, why the hell would I?!”  
Gansey faltered. He didn’t register they were fighting until Adam raised his voice. He wasn’t sure they'd ever really fought before. It was unfamiliar ground, and he didn’t know what to do, and he was afraid of how easily his words bubbled from his mouth just a moment ago.

“For the company,” he eventually said.  
He really meant ‘for me’. It was childish, but it was the ugly, pathetic truth: he wanted Adam to want him back. He wanted a skinned display of reciprocation, wanted both of their hands stained red with need.  
Adam just looked at him, as if he knew something Gansey didn’t, then shook his head. The air was still charged, but Gansey felt deflated. “I can’t, man. I’m sorry,” Adam replied.  
He couldn’t tell if Adam really heard what he said. It still felt like he was saying, ‘I won’t, not even for you. Especially not for you.’

Neither of them said anything for a long, excruciating moment.

“The company should be here anyway,” Adam muttered into the heavy air.  
“Pardon?” Gansey thought the conversation was over, pinned for eternity, never to be mentioned by either ever again. That was their system, wasn’t it? Deflect and repress and pretend.  
“The company is here,” Adam repeated. A flurry of frustration shot through Gansey. “But what if it _shouldn’t_ be?” He had to stop the words from grazing his throat. The ‘what if’s’ were too endless, his desperation too bottomless. After a lifetime of wishing and wanting, he was moments away from receiving. He couldn’t say no if he tried.  
“I’m not gonna—I can’t—I can’t…“ he broke himself off.  
Adam huffed through his nose, the corners of his mouth resisting a smile, vindicated. He proved himself right in something unknown to Gansey, establishing something between them. Gansey ached from his ribs to his fingernails.  
  
He crossed his arms, stitching himself together, turning his head away. “I’m planning on interviewing interns at some point next week. We’ll leave when I know where to stay— I don’t know what else to tell you,” he looked back at Adam as he finished, quickly wishing he hadn’t. There was a bewildering amount of tragedy etched into the fine, delicate lines in his face. It was subtle, like most parts of Adam, but it was there. The instinctive urge to smother him with all of himself, to pull him tightly into the knot of his arms, to press his mouth against the crease between his brows was blinding and Gansey felt hysterical with the impossibility of it all.  
  
Adam blinked, and suddenly all that dizzying vulnerability vanished. “Fine,” he replied quietly, sinking further into the bed.

And it was pitiful how deeply Gansey suddenly longed for simpler times. Agony wracked his body as he felt something incommunicable sifting through his ugly hands, only making him want to dig his nails in deeper.  
It was only made worse by him not feeling particularly… wrong. This shouldn’t have been an argument, and it certainly shouldn’t be something he should feel the need to apologize for. This was the next logical step he should be taking. This was his life now, his all-consuming dedication would sooner kill him than fade, entirely uncompromising. Adam should understand that better than anyone by now. The memory of the two of them calculating that first algorithm, the one originally made to process Gansey’s past fixations, flickered through his mind. Startlingly, Gansey felt something in his chest heave upon the recollection. Simpler times. His eyes trailed over to the computer.

A deep sigh unclogged his insides. He walked over to the desk, sat down with only slight flourish. The Facebook page was still open; he clicked refresh.  
“One hundred-fifty thousand,” he said, soft. It was incomprehensible. It was all theirs. He glanced back to Adam; he had sat up a little straighter, body supported by the wall. Gansey couldn’t read his expression, his eyes heavy as stones, his mouth smeared into a blurry smile. “Congratulations, dude,” he replied. It was sincere, Gansey could tell that much.  
“Congratulations.”

“THREE MINUTES!” The room around him wailed in a drunken chorus, the screams erupting from the walls and seeping into his skin. The space around him was warm with bodies, reeking of alcohol, and overflowing with the unbridled insanity that came with packing the basement of the computer science building to the brim with intoxicated undergrads.  
In the center, five tables were pushed into a circle, computers rigged with the potential interns devouring their setups. They each tore themselves from their keyboards to throw down a shot, their glasses immediately being refilled by a pretty girl with a bottle of Jack.  
  
Noah, who was laughing giddily besides Gansey, had the idea to turn the interviews into a competition. Gansey hadn’t been convinced it was a great measure of the interviewee’s potential—until he saw the brilliance it took to hack into the server they had set up with all its beautiful intricacies, while also being drunk. There was a genuine magnetism to the way they moved, all whirring cogs in an overheating machine. Aliveness ignited in and around him; it was starting, it was starting, it was starting.

“YO, Parrish!” Noah suddenly shouted.

And everything froze as Gansey turned to the entranceway. Standing in the doorframe, looking directly back at Gansey, was Adam.  
They hadn’t seen each other since their argument last week; Gansey’s heart rang itself out at the sight of him, grief and longing and shame now filling his chest. He was a vision of spectacular oddness, peculiar and beautiful amidst a world too humanly untamed. Gansey wanted to encase him in glass, poise him high on a marble slab, anything to ensure the chaos didn’t touch him, to keep him for himself. He wanted this moment forever, wanted to look for eternity.

Adam looked away, his mouth shattering his face into a heart-wrenching smile. He waved at Noah, then made his way to the two of them.

“How’re the ‘interviews’ going?” He had to shout to be heard. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the adrenaline, or the way Adam glowed in the dim basement light, but Gansey suddenly wanted to cry. “Swimmingly,” he exclaimed. One of Adam’s cheeks dimpled as he turned to scan the screens. After a moment he noted, “I like that the last person to exit that pop-up has to take a shot!”  
And all Gansey could do was smile and laugh; he didn’t trust himself to say anything, not when Adam was so ruinously magnificent, not when his heartbeat was this loud in his ears.  
  
Adam then looked down at his hands, the movement beckoning Gansey’s gaze along down with him. An envelope was pinched between his perfect fingers. They looked back up at each other simultaneously.  
“Hope eighteen-thousand is enough to get you through the summer, Tiger,” Adam said as he handed over the envelope. His voice sounded strange in his throat, but Gansey was hardly able to process it. This was all the money they needed to live in California. He stared at the envelope, at Adam’s way of saying “I support you in this: I _trust_ you.” He looked back up at Adam’s complicated, agonizing face, and the world around him dissolved as he crumbled into his arms.  
  
Adam hugged him back closely, entirely and it made him ache; He found himself transported back to their first meeting, how for the first time in his life he felt held by someone. It was protection he had never known, wholeness that was never his, and oh _god_ he loved him. He loved him so much. He mashed his face against his collarbone and choked down tears because it was taking everything in him to not claw at his shirt and rake his bitten nails across his back and sink into him as deeply as possible. The scent of dust and home suffocated him.

“HERE!”  
“RIGHT HERE!”

The shouts caused Gansey to launch himself away, the feeling of nakedness creeping on his skin. Two of the candidates were suddenly standing, pointing at their computers, evidently finished. He hesitated for a moment, whiplash settling in his head as he remembered where he was. He didn’t even look at Adam first before crossing over to them, a mix of not wanting him to see whatever expression lingered on his face, and overwhelming curiosity to see these kids’ work. He glanced at the first screen, then the second…

“Welcome to Facebook!” He exclaimed.

The room erupted with applause and congratulations. Gansey shook both of their hands, thanking them for their hard work, giddiness rising in him knowing these two brilliant kids were the start of his new team, his next steps towards conquest. Everyone else knew it too, the energy that surged and danced and leaked from his subjects was unparalleled. The two now-interns clung to each other. This was ecstasy, this was bliss.  
  
As he stared at the crowd of people, all cheers and laughter, he locked eyes with Adam. It was somehow jarring to see him devoured by the mass of people around him; he felt so far away. He attempted a smile, wanted to express eagerness and hope without words— or at least amicability. Adam’s returned grin was murky. Gansey was once again aware of the grief and longing and shame that soaked into his insides. It felt lethal. There was so much he wanted to say.

Adam raised his hand, then turned to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, how have the past 2 months been treatin ya? i honestly have no idea why this took me so fucking long to finish, but here she is!! I think we're a little more than halfway through at this point? so cheers ill drink to that lol, hope youve been enjoying it so far!!!


	7. Chapter 7

Gansey fluttered through the house, restless anxiety swimming in him, unable to stay still. He slid open the already filthy glass door leading to the backyard, just in time to see Noah slam into the pool from a zip line. Henry, who had decided to tag along the trip, was barking out a hyena laugh and holding a tape recorder. On the roof, one of the interns downed the rest of her beer as another pulled back the zip line. Another cheered on from the side. This was fine, this was an okay combination. Noah waved at him, and he waved back. Yes, they were all good. Okay.  
New distraction—  
He wandered back into the living room, taking a moment to absorb what they’d done to it. The pulsing energy of Silicon Valley ricocheted into their home, the surrounding scenery of Palo Alto was as beautiful as the house was... quaint. And they hadn’t hesitated to make themselves comfortable: pizza boxes and cans and bottles and wires created an intricate maze on the shag carpet, every available surface had at least one computer hooked up to it, a disastrous mix of a dorm room and an office on its last day before its company shuts down. It was theirs, it was perfect. Really, all it was missing was… well…  
Gansey didn’t wanna think about it.

He glanced over to the two original interns tap-tap-tapping away at their computers. “Hey, how’re y—“  
“Not now,” one of them interrupted, not even looking up from their screen. He smiled fondly at the brashness, they were working so hard… so hard that Gansey wouldn’t be able to distract himself with them, which was such a shame because Kavinsky would be here any moment now and Gansey didn’t think his heart could physically handle waiting any longer so if he could just—

The doorbell rang.

The simple trueness of it made Gansey’s relentlessly unquiet mind quiet. The doorbell rang which meant Gansey now had to answer (did they always have a doorbell?). He tried to breathe in courage, exhaling it just as quickly, his chest a ruin as he walked to the door (was the living room always this huge?). In slow motion, he witnessed his hand reaching for the doorknob, fingers splayed and trembling, then locked around the brass (were his hands always this fucking ugly?).  
And it was startling just how simple the act of opening a door was: only a moment ago he’d been staring at the worst shade of brown he’d ever seen, and the next it was open air and glorious California sunshine and all 6’2 feet of Joseph Kavinsky leaning against the doorframe and suddenly that was all he could see. He wore a smile that could kill and white sunglasses perched at the end of his long, handsome nose and Gansey felt like he was about to be devoured.  
  
“So… you came to California,” he said, voice dripping with humor. Gansey stumbled for a response, but before he could conjure anything, a scream echoed from outside, followed closely by the unmistakable sound of several things being irreparably destroyed. Gansey winced, maybe a zip line, a pool, and his friends was not as okay of a combination as he thought. Kavinsky peered over Gansey’s shoulder, his cheek creasing. “Sounds like you made the right decision.”

Gansey lead him inside, stopping by the sliding doors to make sure everyone was okay—the chimney had been perfectly ripped from the roof, a glass table shattered, and Noah had somehow skinned his knee, but otherwise everything was fine—and brought him to the kitchen.  
“This house is _everything_, man, it’s exactly what the fuck it should be,” Kavinsky exclaimed as he perched himself against a counter. Gansey grinned at him from inside the fridge, then tossed him a bottle. He caught it effortlessly, then launched himself off from the counter, towards the interns who were seated in the open dining room across from them. He had a habit, Gansey noticed, of unstillness.  
He reached a hand to one, smile crackling as he said, “I’m Joseph Kavinsky.” The kid just waved a hand at him, still refusing to break eye contact with their precious code. Gansey actually felt a flush of embarrassment, but Kavinsky just laughed. “They’re wired in,” Gansey said, trying not to sound sheepish. “Fuck yeah they are!” He looked around some more, less taking it all in than… searching, prowling. Something dark stained his expression as he did it.  
  
“Is Parrish lurking around here somewhere too?”  
  
Gansey stopped himself from sucking in a breath. He really, really did not want to think about it. It was like his arm had been amputated— no, like his whole body had been ripped in half, blood endlessly gushing out. His face must’ve shown it because Kavinsky raised an eyebrow at him. “He’s got a, uh, internship. In New York,” Gansey strained from his knotted throat. Kavinsky blinked at him, black eyes huge. “He didn’t come?” He asked with scandal in his voice. Gansey just shook his head, trying not to blink too fast, trying not to vomit at the thought of what he was confirming. Adam was actually planning on visiting the next week, but the words felt like cotton balls stuck to his throat.  
Kavinsky guffawed to himself, “He didn’t come.” He took another sip of his drink.

Kavinsky promised to give Gansey a good show now that he was in California, and once day became night he began with taking the whole crew to a nightclub in San Francisco. Though, now that they were there, Gansey could see it was anything but just a nightclub. It was a gorgeous, ancient theatre, renovated to incorporate modern sleekness seamlessly throughout the charming grandness. Music pounded and each occupant was more beautiful than the last.  
  
Their group began at the VIP section, drinks flowing and laughter echoing and professional dancers at every corner, but soon Kavinsky dragged Gansey out to the dance floor. Bodies surrounded him at every angle, all different kinds of perfume washed over him, the sound of the music tangling with an orchestra of different voices screaming over each other all combined to form Gansey’s own personal heaven. He liked the way Kavinsky danced too, liked the way his body moved.  
He was saying something about how Victoria’s Secret was founded, and Gansey was sure it was important and insightful, but he was so insanely distracted by the way his wifebeater revealed such a beautiful half moon of skin, all carved collarbones and lean muscle. It didn’t help that an exceptionally pretty girl kept eyeing Gansey from across the room. She smiled a mouthful of pearls, and he yanked his gaze back to Kavinsky out of panic.  
  
“The poor guy just wanted to buy his wife a pair of thigh-highs,” Kavinsky laughed. Gansey’s attention snagged to the shape of his mouth. “Gansey?” The mouth spoke.  
“Hm? Oh, yeah, wow that’s crazy!” Gansey sputtered, flicking his eyes back up.  
Kavinsky’s grin shifted. “You really don’t need to be impressed by all this,” he said, throwing his arms out as wide as the space would let him. Gansey’s face spasmed in question. “Wh-why shouldn’t I be?” He asked. Kavinsky shook his head at him knowingly, his smile increasingly cheshire.  
“I know none of this was ever the point. You don’t care about the glamour, let alone need it.” It momentarily struck Gansey how noisy it was, and that he wished to go somewhere quieter with him. And that statement seemed presumptuous, but he supposed it wasn’t incorrect. Kavinsky leaned in closer, and Gansey suddenly felt very, very grounded. “You know, I found your blog. Read all those things you said and did right before Facebook was even conceptualized,” Kavinsky remarked, smirk unrelenting.  
  
Gansey felt heat spark through his chest, up into his face as memories pounded against his brain: Blue and Adam and the window with the algorithm on it and the website and his probation and Adam waiting for him in the cold and his meeting with Whelk and Adam being the only person who he could ever talk to and TheFacebook and recognition and feeling something other than the crushing weight of inadequacy and the party and Blue and Adam and Adam and Adam.  
  
“Oh, that was all ridiculous of me, I don’t know why I ever—“  
“A rich kid making fun of other rich kids is kind of funny, isn’t it? What’s the motivation behind that?”  
Gansey faltered. He didn’t trust himself to explain himself. “I was… trying to prove a point.”  
“To who?”  
The answer was of course Blue, but… well. It had always been more than that, hadn’t it.  
“Someone I was into,” he settled on. It was a half-truth. “Do you know why I created Napster?” Kavinsky asked, referring to his first major entrepreneurial venture. Gansey shook his head; if the answer was anything beyond wanting to make something meaningful, he didn’t know it. “The guy I was in love with in high school decided he wanted nothing to do with me anymore, as if I wasn’t gonna fight for him. How better else to get him back than impress him with the next big thing? Or at least make it so he couldn't go a fuckin' day without hearing about me.”  
The world shifted for a moment. Once he felt the floor beneath him settle again Gansey replied, “I didn’t know that.”  
  
“Good business was never the point. So what if we went bankrupt, who ever said that meant failure? I did exactly what I meant to do: I shoved my name down everyone’s throat. Forced them to look at me,” he said, obsidian eyes devouring Gansey, making his skin prickle, as if Kavinsky had touched him. “Wasn’t that what your website was about? Isn’t that all you’ve ever wanted?”  
He was right. He was unbearably right. Gansey wanted more than anything to feel entirely, ferociously seen. His whole existence screamed_ LOOK AT ME_. It ate at him, the way he needed to crawl inside someone, to burrow a permanent home in anyone. Being paid attention, and exchanging the good and service of himself in return. It was all he ever wanted, what he had always wanted, and he wanted so badly.  
  
“They’re scared of me, Dick, but they’ll adore you. No VC’s will ever pull a ‘good idea, kid, but the grown-ups will take it from here’ on you. Not this time. This is our time! And if they dare to try, you’re gonna hand them a business card that says: I’m CEO, bitch!”  
Gansey laughed. Kavinsky smiled back at him, “not only is that what you deserve, but it’s what I want for you.”  
Oh, if only Gansey could bury himself in that sentence. It is what he deserved, all of it. And god, he loved how Kavinsky spoke; brazen and loud and inflamed. No lines to read between. He wanted Gansey’s triumph, and Gansey was blistering.

“So where the fuck is Adam?”

The wildfire that began in his chest was suddenly doused.  
He sighed, “he has an—“  
“An internship?” Kavinsky interrupted. He shook his head, irritated and somber. “The company’s here, man. He should’ve come.”  
  
It broke Gansey’s heart to hear it out loud. He should’ve come. Why didn’t he come?  
  
“It’s not like the kid’s an idiot, I’m sure he’s gonna be very successful in whatever the fuck he wants to be— but if he keeps treating this once-in-a-generation-holy-shit idea like any other white-collar businessman bullshit that he can coast through by kissing Madison Avenue’s ass, he’s gonna drown.”  
He said it so matter-of-fact, each word a heavy stone of reality that Gansey now had to hold. A stupid and foolish thought erupted in his mind: was this really just a business venture for Adam?   
And it was stupid and foolish because of course this was just a business venture, and it was cruel of him to want it to mean more than that. Yet… it meant more than that. This was more than just a business, this was his life, his child, something he had nurtured and loved and poured all of himself into. It was everything to him, and he’d done it with the only person he’d ever felt that same unconditional adoration for. To think that Adam didn’t feel the same… oh, that killed him. He didn’t want him to drown either though. He needed him. He needed him! God, why the fuck hadn’t he come?!  
  
“You live and breathe facebook, I know you do. You can’t allow yourself to be dragged under too.”  
There were many things that Gansey lived and breathed. He was tired of the all consuming devotion.  
“Do you… do you ever think about that guy? From high school?” Gansey asked, meek and pathetic. Kavinsky’s face darkened. The seriousness looked eery on him.  
  
“It was never gonna be me and him.”  
  
Gansey stared at him with wide eyes, and his heart tugged viciously in two different directions. He needed to do something. He needed to breathe again. With a deep inhale, trying to loosen his tightening lungs, he asked, “while we’re here, if it wouldn’t be a problem for you, would you want to come live with my team?”  
Kavinsky’s mouth curled. “Sure. Let’s get some shots in you.”

The week past, with Kavinsky easily inserting himself into the household’s system. It was intellectual ecstasy, it was a dream. Within his short time there, Kavinsky had already set up several meetings with potential investors, including Dean Allen, the runner of a two-billion dollar hedge fund. It was insanity, and Gansey felt like slaughtering himself in order to repay the favor. Kavinsky just insisted it was what Gansey deserved. Gansey burned with pride.

That evening, Gansey awoke, groggy and not entirely rested. He was waking up in the evening because he had been coding for 30 hours straight and needed a nap. Looking at the clock, the nap had turned into nine hours. A rarity for him. Nice. Except he felt the faintest feeling that he was forgetting something.  
As he forced himself to sit up, blinking away the remaining sleepiness, he heard voices echoing from the living room. He figured at least two of them were girls that Kavinsky had invited over, which wasn’t surprising because that was something he liked to do, but it was unusual to hear anyone else since usually everyone was too wired in to talk. He stretched out, all of his bones cracking, then stood to investigate.  
  
When he left the hallway that lead from the bedrooms to the living room, he first noticed the two girls lounging on the couch, laughing giddily with each other as they played a video game. There was also a bong sitting on the table in front of them. Gansey didn’t mind having guests, but he didn’t love how… young these girls often looked. He ignored it.  
That brought him to the doorway, where he first noticed Kavinsky, who shot him a look he was too sleepy to analyze. It was only then he noticed, standing in front of Kavinsky, wearing his usual thrifted coat, his shoulders and hair splattered with rain, was Adam.  
  
The tense set of his posture alluded Gansey as a sudden flood of affection and relief surged through him. It was like seeing an angel, a miracle. In no time, he strode over to him and lightly punched his arm. “Parrish!” He exclaimed. Adam’s attention swiftly turned to Gansey, a scowl quickly dissolving from his face, replaced with bewildered frustration.  
  
“H-hey, man,” he began, the first ‘h’ in ‘hey’ was exhaled from a soft scoff. Gansey’s joy plateaued rather than subsided, confusion settling it. Adam blinked at him, as if wanting something. Gansey just continued to stare. “I waited an hour for you at the airport.” Gansey’s stomach sank. That’s right. He was supposed to pick him up.  
“Jesus, I’m so sorry,” he replied, wincing at himself, genuinely apologetic… yet now that he was fully awake, his brain was already reeling ahead of him. “But, hey, look—now that you’re here, you gotta see some of the stuff we’ve been working on, Noah—“ he called out to their friend who was cautiously watching them all from a desk. “Pull up The Wall,” he looked back at Adam, smiling messy and smug, “I’m just calling it The Wall—“  
  
“Fuck The Wall,” Kavinsky interrupted. He looked at Adam through slit eyes. “Tell him about the meetings I’ve set up.”  
Adam looked back to Gansey, sharp. And hurt. “Meetings? He’s setting up meetings?” His voice was low and accusatory. His eyes were darker than Gansey remembered. “Oh yeah,” Kavinsky continued to speak, which was good because Gansey wasn’t at all sure what to say. The venom in Adam’s voice was all at once startling and debilitating. “One of which is with a certain Dean Allen, no big deal or anything.” Adam was still staring at Gansey, analyzing him more than looking. Gansey, feeling the need to defuse whatever was boiling in him said, “we think Allen is gonna make an angel investment.” But apparently offering this extraordinary information was the wrong move because Adam just snapped, “I don’t care if he’s an actual angel, why is _he_ setting up meetings?”  
_  
Because you aren’t here_, A cruel voice in Gansey’s head instantly retorted. He didn’t say it out loud though.  
  
“You’ve had a long flight, let’s just talk—“  
“No, I had a long wait at the tarmac in JFK, then a long wait in at the loading and unloading zone in SFO, and in-between those I had a long flight,” he interrupted. His words were getting worn out, like exhaustion was starting to settle in his throat. “I’m the business end of this company, he is a houseguest living rent free on a very generous Adam-Parrish grant!”  
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard all about your big business plays,” Kavinsky laughed.  
“Hey, man—“ Adam began, anger riling up again.  
“Gary’s Tuxedos, the Harvard Bartending Course. You’re just one small step away from bagging Snookies Cookies, I can feel it!” Kavinsky continued, his voice dripping with sickeningly sweet mockery. Gansey looked at him in shock, eyebrows knotted. It wasn’t that he expected him to be nice or polite with Adam, but the… vitriol was staggering. Kavinsky looked back at him, and his grin actually wavered, as if he was sensing he was crossing a line with Gansey by digging into Adam. For once, Adam himself didn’t notice this muted communication. Instead, he shut his eyes and let out a deep breath; His tongue pressed to his cheek as he did a quick nod to himself, followed by a sharp inhale. Gansey knew he was watching Adam attempt to pull himself together.  
“You know what? Sure, let’s talk, Gans.” His voice was gentler than before, but the cause of that seemed to be more likely from tiredness than anything else. Still, Gansey smiled appreciatively, just happy to have him back, to have him here. He lead him into the hallway, and as they left, Kavinsky busied himself with the girls anyway.

“I’m really so happy that you’re here, man,” Gansey said as they settled across from each other, both on either side of the small hall. “So how are you, how’s your internship?” He asked politely, but still eagerly interested. Adam’s face instantly dropped again. It looked awful on him, the gaunt strangeness of his face turning cold and haunted rather than beautiful and elegant.  
“How’s the internship?” He repeated. Gansey wondered how it was possible for him to make so many tremendously catastrophic misfires in such a short span of time. He was not granted much time to ponder this though, because suddenly Adam slammed the door to the hall shut. The sound erupted around them, the instant violence of it was nearly blinding.  
  
“Gansey, Jesus, I quit the internship! I-I told you this, we talked about it, were you even liste— I quit my first day!” Adam exclaimed, voice and expression seeping exasperation rather than anger. Gansey raked his mind for any sort of recollection—and now that it was brought up, he actually did remember that. But it was hardly fair for Adam to be mad at him. He was getting so sick of feeling like he was the one that should be apologizing.  
“Maybe it’s hard to keep track of those kinds of things when you’re not even here,” he replied. Now he had said it out loud. Good.  
Adam’s face rippled. “Oh, don’t even, Gansey. You make it sound like it’d be so god damn easy to just throw everything away for this.”  
It felt icy and cruel. Kavinsky’s words at the club echoed back to him. “You don’t even care about what we’re doing here. None of this means anything to you,” he said as cold as he could manage.  
  
Adam looked like he had been struck. It was a particular kind of raw, and Gansey felt a ferocious stream of instant guilt: guilt from having caused it, guilt from feeling satisfied from it.  
“You think I spent every second of my time—time I could’ve spent working or interning or networking—devoting all of myself to this with you just for the hell of it? You think I invested this much of my own money just to still not care? Why else do you think I don’t want that jackass touching our shit? This is our thing!” He said, sounding wounded. _Our thing_, Gansey’s heart tripped over those words and soared. Memories of the two of them in their dorms, working relentlessly, drinking up each other’s energy, absorbed in this wonderful creature they had made together consumed him. Just the look on his face was enough for Gansey’s anger to melt.  
  
And he should’ve just left it at that. Everything Adam had just said was enough, but before he could stop himself, he cried with embarrassing desperation, “you have to move out here, Adam! This is where it’s happening now!” He didn’t want those to just be memories. He wanted this to be their future too, together.“Did you hear what I just said?”  
“The connections, the energy—“  
“Gans—“   
  
“I’m afraid if you don’t come out you’re gonna get left behind!” He erupted, then looked down, unable to bare witness to Adam’s beautiful face. “I want—I want—I need you out here…” it wasn’t quite a confession, but he blushed anyway, humiliating and earnest.  
  
There was the briefest of pauses before Adam replied, “what do you mean get left behind?” Gansey looked back up at him. He had snagged onto the wrong part of that sentence. It was somehow shattering, and Gansey was so tired of feeling fractured. There was nothing he could do but answer. He let the words tumble from him, “Adam, it’s moving faster than any of us could’ve ever imagined, even Kavinsky agrees—“  
“Kavinsky is not apart of this company!” Adam spat.  
“and we have over 300,000 members—“  
“I’m aware of that.”  
“And we’re in five continents—“  
“I’m aware of that, Gansey, I’m the CFO!”  
“And we need more servers I could’ve ever expected, more programmers, we need more money, which is why Kavinsky set up the Allen meeting, and several others around town!”  
“He’s set up more meetings around town.” It was a poisonous statement rather than a question. “Yeah,” Gansey stated back.  
“Without me knowing anything about it!?”  
“You’re in New York!”  
“I’m in New York riding subways fourteen hours a day trying to get advertisers so we can make more money like you just said we needed!”

_“And how’s it going so far!?”_

They both stood very still for a moment, Gansey’s breath catching back up to him the same time as his patience. But it was too late. Adam set his jaw. With horrifying, devastating calmness, he opened the door, closed it quietly behind him, and Gansey was entirely alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. Gans, get a grip lol.  
Anyway good GOD hi I don’t know why this took me so fucking long to finish, I’m so sorry for that nfjkdsnfk you’d think quarantine would’ve made me whip his out in 2 seconds (this is also probably the most I’ve stolen from the actual script too lol fuck), but I hope the wait was worth it :^( thank you for those of you who are still sticking around, it really means everything to me. Lmk what you’re thinking! We’re in the home stretch now, folks. We have like… 3 more chapters I think? Damn… its all downhill from here lmao
> 
> (ALSO… I feel the urge to say that I’m not Actually a k*vinsky stan the way some people are in this fandom NJKNIVNDKSN like.. I’ll admit I love him As A Character since he was by far the most entertaining villain for me, but like. Don’t group me with some of these other freaks lmfao, I would never defend him or romanticize his actions or ship him with anyone or anything else like that. I simply think its funny that hes literally gay and homophobic FHDSJKFSK, but more importantly he was also a perfect fit for the Sean Parker fill in for this particular fic. And I try not to describe my intentions with how I write certain things in these notes, but I wanna disclaim this is just Gansey’s repressed loneliness jumping out! K is greasy and Gansey has rancid taste sometimes fjsnvvniavn)


	8. Chapter 8

Gansey’s breath rattled in his chest, nerves erupting in waves in his stomach. He and Kavinsky sat together in the waiting room next to Dean Allen’s office, his hands unnervingly damp and legs insistent on bouncing. Kavinsky mentioned that the movie Towering Inferno had been filmed there. It was not comforting.  
After what felt like decades, the sleek doors opened, revealing the exceptionally handsome and well-groomed Dean Allen. He was dressed in a smart, entirely gray suit, and his grin was delighted and charming and framed by becoming stubble. Somehow, Gansey felt instantly better.  
“Come on in, boys!” He called out to them. Gansey was more than obliged to follow his lead into the glamorously modern office.  
The various knick-knacks scattered throughout the room suggested Allen was a man that traveled in ways his career did not require, and Gansey felt a sudden longing to pry and inquire and listen.  
  
"You were offered water, I hope?” Allen asked pleasantly. “Oh yeah, we’re cool,” Kavinsky replied, leaning against a wall. Allen smiled at him, “glad to hear it. It’s always a treat to see you, Joseph.” Kavinsky’s cheek dimpled, almost sarcastic in nature. Allen then turned to Gansey, giving him a lofty look up and down. “So you must be Richard!”  
“Just Gansey, please,” he answered. He wondered how it was possible it hadn’t yet become universally known that his given name had absolutely zero relevance to his identity. “How charming!” Allen commented before saying, “well, Just Gansey, we took a look at everything you’ve offered, and I’m thrilled to say: congratulations! We’re gonna start you up with a $500,000 investment.”  
_  
Congratulations. $500,000_. He had said it so casually Gansey almost thought he’d imagined it— but the glint in Kavinsky’s eyes wasn’t imaginary. Holy shit.  
  
“Now, this means you’ll have to deal with corporate restructuring, which I’m so sorry about,” he said gravely, which was somehow endearing, “but we will handle filing as a corporation. We’re setting up in Delaware, and this new structure will allow for more investment opportunities.”  
Gansey felt his vision go glassy. Had he ever heard more wonderful news in his entire life? His body felt lightness it had never known, his heart trilled, nothing in the world could ever bring him down from this.  
“Now, I do have one question,” Allen continued, voice still somber. “Who is Adam Parrish?”

Gansey had managed to hold himself together until they arrived back home. Kavinsky went to celebrate with the rest of the crew while Gansey calmly, quietly excused himself to the backyard.  
Apparently, when looking through Facebook’s recent records, Allen discovered that the bank account where all the company’s funds bled from had been frozen; frozen, by the account owner. Someone by the name of Adam Parrish.  
Gansey’s chest rumbled. His brain felt liquidated and his head felt heavy with the leftover, gory mush. He had to call him. What could have possibly possessed him to do something so… so impossibly reckless? It was against Adam’s nature to do anything so unthinkingly rash, so impetuous, wasn’t it? Gansey felt like he was drowning in himself. He had to call him.  
He pulled out his phone, fingers suddenly hesitating on the buttons. He had to calm down first, had to gather himself. He counted to three, breathing deep, his chest still feeling like an aching, empty cavity. He would start with the good news, lead positively, and then ask delicately what had prompted Adam’s actions. With another useless breath, he dialed his number.

“Hello?” Adam answered, plainly, mundanely. As if nothing was wrong. It lit a fuse Gansey didn’t realize was inside of himself. “You froze the account?!” He cried into the receiver.  
“I did,” Adam replied, voice insisting on remaining maddeningly normal. “You froze the account,” Gansey snapped, a furious affirmation.  
“I had to get your attention, Gansey.”  
  
It was too much for him to process. It was unbearably unfair. He had practiced patience saints could only dream of attaining, and he had raked himself through the ruins that were his own feelings, he was not gonna be swayed by words he knew meant more to him than they meant to Adam. Not after Adam had done this. “Do you have any clue what you could’ve done?! Do you realize that your actions could’ve permanently jeopardized— could’ve _destroyed_ everything I’ve been working on?!”  
“_We’ve_ been working on!” Adam’s voice suddenly skyrocketed, and Gansey felt acidic. He wasn’t allowed to claim ‘we’ when he wasn’t even here, not after he visited just to torture Gansey with the impossibleness of himself. Not when Gansey had already begged for it.  
“Yeah, well, the site can’t function without money, Adam! Sorry you’ve never had enough of it to know better!” It was a vicious thing to say, but he said it anyways. “And tell me, if this is really our thing, what’s the key difference between us and everyone else? We don’t crash ever! If we go down for even a day our entire reputation is irreversibly ruined, and the aftermath of that would reverberate throughout the entire website! The whole point is that it’s an interconnected web, a tangled community, so if one goes, everyone else goes, don’t you get that?!” He suddenly choked on a knot in his throat.  
The vision of his perfectly crafted community, what had become his entire life, his one chance to be something, someone, dissolving before him was… it was devastating. He couldn’t let that happen. He would never let that happen.

“I’m not going back to isolation!”

The air was instantly empty and lifeless around him. The only hint that Adam hadn’t hung up was the quiet buzzing in his ear from the phone. It was somehow harrowing; Gansey had never known Adam to choose silence. Stillness, resistance, yes, but not this. He had expected rebuttals, interruptions, bite and passion and fight, and the quiet buzzing was anything but. Even the silence itself felt tired, burned, and in the silence, knowingness crept into him.  
Why had he used the word isolation?  
Would that ever be the proper word to describe himself? It felt like it, like a vex laced his bones, an unchanging fact that Gansey was always going to be alone. But did that make it true? And did Adam, who had been with him throughout all of this, who was now separated by a whole country, feel the same? Was he too tired, too burned for bite and passion and fight?  
Calmness suddenly overcame him, followed by a sweep of remorse. A simple thought emerged: He didn’t want to argue anymore.

“Maybe you were frustrated,” he spoke. His regular voice was chilling. He didn’t realize how loud he had been.  
A beat passed. “Yeah,” Adam said hoarsely.  
“Maybe you were angry.”  
“I was.”  
Gansey’s eyes stung. “But, Adam, I’m, I…” he didn’t know how to move on. He was entrapped in the deadness around him, like the air itself stuck him to this moment permanently.  
“I was angry,” Adam spoke up. “I was angry, and maybe it was reckless, or childish, but— I had to get your attention.”  
Gansey began to blink rapidly. Oh god, he wanted Adam so badly. It was gonna kill him. He wanted it to kill him. But he wasn't allowed to think like that. “Adam, I have good news,” he croaked. It felt pathetic and inappropriate given everything, but he needed to move on, and he did have good news. Hadn’t he meant to lead with it? It was taking everything in him to not burst into tears.  
“What is it?”  
“Dean Allen offered an angel investment of half a million dollars.”  
Another beat passed. “What?” Adam asked, voice small and disbelieving and hopeful and wonderful. Gansey felt himself smile. “Half a million. And an office. And they’re gonna reincorporate the company, they wanna meet you—Allen was actually really so excited to meet you—and they need your signature for some documents, so I need you to get the hell back to California…” his words caught for a moment. This needed to be said, though: “I need my CFO.”  
Gansey could practically hear the smile take hold of Adam’s mouth. He wished he could take hold of him. “I’m on my way,” he replied.  
“_Parrish_,” Gansey exhaled. It sounded like a confession.  
“Yeah,” Adam spoke back, quiet, breathless.  
“We did it.”

Gansey couldn’t help staring at Adam through the glass walls of the conference room in their new office. It was a wonderful, shockingly professional space, filled with art and electronics and boxes and beer bottles.  
Adam had returned to California to finish signing the necessary paperwork to solidify the restructuring and everyone’s new place in it. Everyone’s shares had been raised in preparation for any other new investors; the shares would dilute back down to about their original number once a new investor is given the additional shares. Except for Gansey, who had willingly reduced his ownership from 60% to 50%. He was just happy to have Adam there.  
His attention also flicked over to Kavinsky, who had been a tightly wound coil of tension since Adam came back. It deeply saddened Gansey to know they wouldn’t ever get along, but as long as they played nice, everything would be fine.

Eventually, Adam exited the room, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top three buttons of his shirt in simple celebration. He strode directly to Gansey, smile amicable and beautiful. Gansey would do anything to keep him like that. He politely presented his knuckles and Adam gladly completed the ritual before collapsing on the couch across from Gansey. They were in a little nook in one corner of the office, separate from the rest of their new team. Gansey tried not to feel electrified by it, by the way Adam’s body lounged on the cushions. Instead, Gansey handed him a can of coke, which he appreciatively took.  
  
Cheers rang around them, joyous exclamations of congratulations. Lots of handshaking, lots of embraces. Gansey felt overwhelmed with happiness. Adam turned to look at the scene, the fine angles and planes of his neck stretching magnificently. _Jesus Christ_, Gansey thought to himself. He didn’t realize he’d forgotten how lovely Adam was. Adam then looked back at Gansey, smile small and knowing, like he was sharing an inside joke. It did something ruinous to Gansey’s insides. In an attempt to defend himself, Gansey said, “I’m taking next semester off.” He immediately wished he hadn’t, and tried not to flinch. But Adam’s smile didn’t fade the way he thought it would; it just softened.  
  
His shoulders rose and fell gently, and Gansey realized he was sighing. “I figured,” he replied. His long fingers fiddled with the pop tab on the can, but his eyes remained on Gansey. “Is this goodbye?”  
“Never,” Gansey instantly shot back, stomach sinking. Never. He wasn’t going to lose him, nothing was going to change that. Adam snorted, and his cheeks dimpled, but his eyes still looked somber. They were more gray than blue, Gansey suddenly noticed. “Just for now,” he followed up, less intense. He figured Adam, ever pragmatic, would appreciate a more realistic answer at the very least. Adam just nodded, solemn. He couldn’t tell what that meant.  
“But you gotta come— visit,” he continued, stopping himself from saying ‘back’. He didn’t want to allude to that same argument again. He didn’t want to argue anymore. Adam was gonna stay where he was, and Gansey couldn’t do anything about it, and it admittedly wrecked him, but there was nothing he could do about it. “Allen wants to throw us a party in November. We’re estimated to reach a million members by then, it’s gonna be out of control. You gotta come for it,” said, hoping his tone sounded light.  
Adam’s eyes lit up, and Gansey’s breath nearly caught in his throat. “A million members,” he repeated, quiet, like he couldn’t believe it. Gansey couldn’t believe it either. All he could say was, “Yeah.”  
  
Adam’s smile suddenly burst open, glorious and beaming. It changed his whole face, his wonderful, otherworldly oddness instantly becoming warm and earthly and human in a way that shattered Gansey. “Do you…” Adam began, “do you remember the algorithm? On the window at your dorm?”  
Gansey’s eyes suddenly started to sting at the mention of his lighthouse memory, his grounding foundation, his homestead of simpler times. Had that truly only been a year ago?  
“Yeah,” he croaked. Adam’s chin ducked down as he laughed softly to himself. He looked back up at Gansey through his eyelashes. “Yeah, I’ll come back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter, but I have to cut it off here for… soon to be known reasons :( notice that I’ve added the total chapter number…. wah… oh and btw I changed Peter theils name to the gray mans real name bc it felt too weird to have like.. a real life dude in this fic LMAO also I just finished rereading tdt and it reminded me of how much I adore him hjfksdksl so I wanted to have a little fun lol
> 
> Also! We interrupt this program to remind you that black lives matter and all cops are bastards! Heres the link to a carrd full of information and resources, you all better be doing your part >:(  
if you can donate to this piece of shit website, then I know you can donate to an actually good cause  
https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co


	9. chapter 9

Saying goodbye was painful as always. Gansey didn’t know how many more times he could handle it. One moment he had a center of gravity, and then suddenly it was on a plane, leaving him without an orbit. The following loneliness ripped him apart from the inside out, his brain warping and twisting and inventing new reasons to feel hurt. It was so easy to become enraptured by the ache of missing him, of assuming the loneliness was his burden to carry alone without the reality of Adam’s present self to assure him otherwise.  
  
It was almost embarrassing how he had already begun to go back on his promise to himself to let go of his frustrations the moment Adam had left his sight, but even that sting faded with time. What was the point of feeling shame when he was the only one submitting to knowing it?  
At least Kavinsky was there to soften the blow, fill the void, whatever it was that would’ve debilitated Gansey otherwise. He consumed the rest of Gansey’s summer and the following autumn, working and scheming and being so perfectly distracting. He liked the way he looked at him for just a beat too long, allowing Gansey’s brain to invent entirely other scenarios.

  
November rolled around, and by this point Facebook’s legitimacy as a business, as a thriving company, finally flourished in the mind’s of investors from all over. One of which happened to be Case Equity, one of the investment companies that had fired Kavinsky in the early days of his career for reasons he insisted were entirely falsified. Gansey was charmed by the irony and was happy to accept that joy on its own, but Kavinsky was not as quick to let it go. He separated Gansey from the rest of the pack, as he so often did, and laid out a delightful little plan to reap some revenge: Gansey would graciously accept the meeting invitation, but then bizarrely arrive for it at least twenty minutes late—

“Won’t they be put off by that?” Gansey interrupted. “Not if it’s you,” Kavinsky replied, “they’re gonna pitch to you no matter what. They’re gonna beg you to take their money, doesn’t matter if you killed their firstborn on the way there.” Smugness grew in Gansey’s chest at the notion.  
  
So he would show up late, arriving in his regular getup of polos and khaki rather than an appropriate suit, tossing some inconsequential excuse like he simply overslept. They’ll laugh it off, they’ll accept the death of their child, and they’ll continue their pitch business as usual. And Gansey would play along and nod and play along and nod, and when they tie the final bow to their proposition, Gansey will ask, ‘which one of you is Colin Greenmantle’ (who was the CEO), and when he introduces himself (because of course he’s gonna be there), Gansey will simply and eloquently reply, “Joseph Kavinsky says: fuck you.” And then he’d walk out.  
  
It was absolutely juvenile, and despite how much Gansey liked the sound of it, he wasn’t sure he could convince himself to do something like that.  
“Oh, c’mon Dick,” Kavinsky replied, leaning in close and making Gansey’s heart stutter, “have a little fun.”

So Gansey did.

And apparently Greenmantle had a sense of humor, because he was suddenly offering a new deal that was impossible to decline. There was nothing else they could do but accept. The new investment meant that their shares had to be rearranged, which they had planned for back in summer. They’d all have their own shares diluted to allow room for this, and once again, Gansey found himself alone with Kavisnky.  
  


“Gansey, I want to reiterate some truths to you,” he started, as casual as ever. “I know how deeply rooted Facebook is to you. I know it’s grown and developed with you as if it were a part of your own fucking body.”  
Gansey liked the way he said _I know_. He liked the sureness of it, the undeniable truth of it.  
“And I know where those roots grow from, and I admire how important they are to you, I really do… but we aren’t in your dorm anymore.” Innocuously, a chill ran up Gansey’s spine. Kavinsky continued, “this is the big leagues. This is no fucking joke. And part of that means making the right calls, making the tough choices, because you’re the boss and that’s your job.”  
“What are you telling me?” Gansey asked.  
“I’m telling you that you’ve _made it_. You did the impossible and you’re doing it well, but now’s not the time to let yourself get in the way of what you’ve done all this for—“  
“What are you telling me,” Gansey repeated, slower, deeper.  
  
Kavinsky shook his head and looked at Gansey through his dark eyelashes. “This company’s origins will be forever tied to it. There’s nothing anyone can ever do to take that away from you or anyone else, and that’s all great and poetic or whatever, but that doesn’t mean someone deserves the benefits of what it’s become if they’re not doing the work now to warrant it.” The air was heavy and cold. “Adam is not disposable,” he said, his voice coming out choked, “he is just as much a part of this as anyone else.”  
Kavinsky then smiled, and there was something awful about it. He opened his palms wide and said, “is he? Maybe he was at one point, and I respect that, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s not here now. Not when it counts the most.” It was a punch to the throat and suddenly Gansey couldn’t breathe. It was the same unchanging fact he had always known; that Adam was unattainable, that he was not his, and he never would be. Even locking him into Facebook, the thing they had built together, was just not enough. He still wasn’t there.  
  
“It really isn’t anything personal either,” Kavinsky continued, his tone shifting in a way Gansey couldn’t place. “I’ve never denied that he’s a smart kid. If anyone is gonna understand that this is just business, this is just how it goes, it’s gonna be him. And he still has Harvard, he still has chances, and he’s gonna make something out of himself despite how anything turns out here. He’ll be fine.”  
And that was a strange comfort Gansey hadn’t even realized he needed. Pragmatic and capable and intelligent and sturdy Adam Parrish could never deny when something had to be done. It was how he’d always lived, how he’d learned to survive. And it was true that he had given himself other options. This was just business, this was just how it goes. And he’d be fine. Of course he’d be fine.  
He didn’t need Gansey.  
He never did.

The whole office buzzed with unbridled excitement, everyone dressed more for the after-party than an evening at work. A huge monitor hung at the front of the room, boisterously displaying a counter of their total following. 967,987, 967,988, and up and up and up.  
But Gansey drowned it all out.  
If he looked up from his laptop or turned down the music pounding through his headphones for even a moment, he’d probably vomit. His stomach churned a horrific concoction of shame and exhilaration, and ruining their carpet would put a damper on everyone else’s night.  
He spent the whole evening like that, absorbed in the petty documents and codes peering back at him from the bright screen of his computer, politely brushing off anyone that attempted to approach him.  
Adam would be arriving at any given moment. He would be given the papers to sign here at the office, and maybe there would be confusion or anger, and Gansey could understand that, but surely Adam would understand him too. And then they could go to the party together and everything would be fine.  
For now, though, he would continue to ignore the pounding in his chest. He would pretend his hands weren’t shaking and that his head wasn’t spinning and that he truly was just working endlessly hard as usual on whatever the hell he was currently looking at.

  
And the evening continued, and the numbers on the screen kept going up, and he kept working, and his heart kept beating, and the numbers kept going up, and he thought he may have seen a flutter of movement by the entrance, but he kept working, and his music continued to blast, and his peripheral caught a brief moment of commotion and before he could react, his fingers suddenly felt open air and his laptop came crashing down against the table and the explosion of glass and aluminum erupted him out of the trance he had locked himself into because suddenly Adam was standing over him, trembling.

Almost awkwardly, Gansey yanked his headphones down. Blinking rapidly, his eyes went from his shattered computer—it somehow seemed like millions of years had already passed between it having been fully intact to now—to Adam. Adam, who’s whole body had been possessed by a rage Gansey had never seen before. He was the image of pain in its entirety. It instantly seared into Gansey’s brain, and in some transcended way, he knew it was going to be burned in him forever.

  
“How ‘bout now, you still wired in?!” He spat down at Gansey, asking a question that was surely lead up from something else and yet wasn’t a question at all. Distantly, Gansey heard Kavinsky mumble to someone, “get security.”  
Gansey just stared at him, at the way anger and hurt mangled his beautiful face. It was raw.  
“You issued 24-million new shares of stock,” Adam accused. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real. He swallowed thickly, like his heart had somehow found its way into his throat, before quietly saying, “you were told that if new investors came along—“  
“How much were your shares diluted!? How much were his!?” He shouted, another accusation, punctuated by throwing his entire arm in Kavinsky’s direction. And there wasn’t anything Gansey could say because the only answer was the now unbearable truth: they weren’t at all. The only one that took the hit was Adam.

_But that’s just business_, a detached voice in his head stated, blankly. If Adam couldn’t understand that, then he didn’t understand anything at all.

“You signed the papers,” Gansey said, disgustingly gentle, his voice sounding like a stranger's. Adam’s face was agony. Gansey had never seen him like this, had never seen anything beyond fragments of a boy he’d never truly known.  
“You set me up.” His voice cracked. Gansey had the profound realization that he’d never seen Adam cry.  
  
But this couldn’t be Gansey’s fault. Why couldn’t Adam accept that this was always how it was gonna end. It was Greek, it was Shakespearean, he could not rewrite it. It was never gonna be them. It wasn’t personal.  
  
“You’re gonna blame me because you’re the business head of the company, and you made a bad business deal with your own company?” Because that’s what it all came down to anyway. It wasn’t just about signing the papers.  
He could see the cogs turn in Adam’s head as they always did, the magnificent machine that he was, grasping at a rebuttal. “My name’s on the masthead,” he said in a way that would’ve been pathetic if it had been anyone but him.  
“You might wanna check again,” Kavinsky chirped from somewhere. His voice ignited something in Adam, the evidence of that ricocheting throughout his face and posture. He wasn’t hiding anything anymore.  
“Is this because I froze the account?!” He cried to Gansey, who stared at the knot of his eyebrows, the horror of his mouth. Before he could even think to think of a reply, Kavinsky spat back, “did you think we were gonna let you parade around in your thrifted suits pretending you were running this co—“  
  
“_SORRY, my Prada’s at the cleaners!_” He screamed at Kavinsky, his chest concaving and spine arching with the sheer force of it. He then snapped his gaze back to Gansey, hateful and miserable and shattered, “along with my polo and my fuck you boat-shoes, you pretentious douchebag!”

There was a moment where the words hung in the air, impossible to even approach. It only lasted a millisecond before Kavinsky said, “security’s here.” Gansey hadn’t even noticed the two guards now standing a few feet away until Kavinsky had pointed it out. “You’ll be leaving now.”  
“I’m not signing those papers.” He was still only looking at Gansey.  
“We will get the signature,” Kavinsky continued.  
  
“You mean the signature that confirms all I’ve ever been for you is only worth .03% of everything we’ve done together—GOD,” he interrupted himself, the words ripping from his throat, “you’re such a selfish piece of shit! Everything you could’ve ever wanted has been fucking handed to you, but the second something didn’t go your way, the moment I didn’t play the part you assigned me, you had the fucking audacity to punish me for it.” He choked out what could’ve been either a scoff or a sob. “And you thought I was just gonna fucking let you. You actually thought I’d just let you— oh, you better lawyer up asshole, ‘cuz I’m not just coming back for my 30%, I’m coming back for everything!”  
  
Gansey didn’t register that Adam had laid a hand against the table to lower himself closer to his face until he’d pushed himself away again, until his eyes had become just a regular shade of slate-gray instead of the rainstorm that had just consumed him. He was so far away. He was only getting farther.

“Get him out of here,” Kavinsky addressed security.  
“It’s okay, I’m going.” His voice was ice. Something in him had been broken and would never be the same again.

“Oh wait, before you go,” Kavinsky said, his voice acid and sugar, as he dug into the inside pocket of his blazer. He strode over to Adam, a thin rectangle of paper in his spidery hands. “Here’s your nineteen thousand dollars— I wouldn’t cash it though, I drew it from the account you froze.”  
Adam just stared at him. Watching the two of them regarding each other, it dawned on Gansey what infinitely different breeds of animals they were. And the following motion was too fast for Gansey’s brain to follow, but in a flash, Kavinsky’s body suddenly contorted in an all-encompassing flinch as Adam wound his fist back. It was an ugly duet.  
Adam just let his hand fall. A nauseating smile crept onto his face, tears now pooling into his dimples. “I like standing next to you, Kavinsky,” he said, his voice raspy. Kavinsky straightened himself out, the broadness of his shoulders returning indignantly. “It makes me look so tough.”

And then he turned, and Gansey stared at his back as he walked down the infinite length of the office, walking away from him.  
And then he was gone.  
He had just been there and now he was gone. And he had been gone before, but he’d always been back. There was nothing after this. He had pushed him away and now there was nothing.

Decay bloomed inside him.

He heard Kavinsky laugh to their staff, and he must’ve said something witty because soon everyone else was laughing too. Embarrassment clung to him suddenly, and he knew that people were looking at him, perceiving him, and his body felt hot and his breath was shallow and his legs decided they were leaving.

The decay spread through his lungs and down his throat as he collapsed on the bathroom floor. He stared at his shoes because there was nothing else to do.

He couldn’t tell if it had only been seconds or hours later, but eventually the door creaked open. “Aw, c’mon, man! You were fantastic out there,” Kavinsky said, standing above Gansey, who remained sprawled on the floor. He felt like a child. None of this felt real. And he really didn’t like Kavinsky’s tone.  
“You were kinda rough on him,” he practically whispered in reply. Kavinsky settled next to him with a profound lack of delicateness. “Psh, that’s life in the NFL,” he said as he punched Gansey’s arm. Gansey grimaced and shook his head, “you didn’t have to be that rough on him.”  
“Whatever man, listen I’m throwing a party after—“  
“Kavinsky!”  
Kavinsky halted, a bemused expression staining his face. It was enraging. “You know you didn’t have to be that rough on him.”  
Apparently Kavinsky had been restraining his expression because suddenly his face twisted into something cruel. “You can think that Dick, but it’s not like I was his best friend,” he replied. Instantly, the rot engulfed him again. He let his head fall back against the wall and shut his eyes.  
“Look, I’m throwing a party after the party, and it’ll be a hell of a lot less pg13. Show up, have some fucking fun.”  
“Maybe,” he said, which was to say no. He didn’t think he could even go to the first party. “God, you can be a fucking downer sometimes, dude. But fine, keep moping if you want. You’re CEO or whatever.”  
_  
I think I’m dying_… he thought to himself as Kavinsky left the bathroom, leaving him alone.

He remained alone for the rest of the night. He wasn’t quite ready to leave the office yet, like he’d be accepting something if he were to step foot out of the building. The office was especially surreal at night, all the glass feeling utterly, entirely lifeless. He sat at an intern’s desk, borrowing her computer which was only ever really used for googling things anyway. He got some work done.

He checked the time after what he had assumed only been about thirty minutes to see that it was actually 4:40am. Bizarrely, it was like seeing an old friend. Familiar. He’d been here before.

Before his mind could continue to wander down whatever nonsense path it was working itself up to, his phone rang. Unsurprisingly, it was Kavinsky, probably just looking for a ride home. Disappointment still wracked his body anyway, almost performatively, like it was trying to prove a point. He answered with a casual, “hey.”  
Kavinsky spoke in a low, guttural whisper, “okay just—just let me explain. Um, something, uh, happened.”  
  
“What?” Gansey asked. Every time he said that word he genuinely felt like the stupidest person alive.  
  
“Look, okay, so the party was going great, people were having fun, people were getting up to shit, whatever, no big fucking deal, right?” He didn’t leave a pause for Gansey to agree, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to anyway. “So like… I’m with these, uh, interns. And yeah we’re drinking, and yeah maybe some coke or something got in the mix, I don’t know, who’s to say. That’s none of my business!”  
Warning sirens began to go off in Gansey’s brain. Even just the mention of interns was enough to make his brain perk up in the worst possible way, let alone the fact that they were doing drugs with the new president of the company. _God, K, what the fuck did you do._  
“And maybe I had a little too! What-fucking-ever, I’m a fucking adult! But like… okay, so maybe the police showed up ‘cuz the music was too loud or some shit, I don’t know, bottom line is that they took me and the interns in.” He spat the words out fast and aggravated and… anxious. Gansey could somehow tell he was pacing as he said everything.  
  
_Jesus_, he thought, _christ_.  
  
A heavy exhale forced itself out of his chest, exasperation hitting him in an instant wave. He was so tired. “Fuck, Kavinsky—“  
“It’s fine, I’ve got it under control. I posted bond and shit, and like I wasn’t even fucking doing anything that bad—“  
“_Interns_,” Gansey repeated, patience seared out of him. “Even if you’re out, you were still doing shit with our teenage employees!” It was overwhelming how fast the exhaustion morphed into anger, how quickly it took hold of him.  
  
“It was just a party!” Kavinsky replied, panic outweighing everything else. Gansey hated it, he hated the lack of conviction, hated the fear.  
“It’s gonna be news, Kavinsky! It’ll be online any second.” He couldn’t fathom how he could’ve done something so stupidly reckless right as they’d finally made it, right when they were an actual fucking business with actual fucking investors and an office and employees and a reputation and everything, what the fuck was wrong with him?!  
“I have it under control—“  
“No, I will get it under control,” Gansey interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I will call someone and I will handle it. But this is news now.”  
The other line was silent for a moment before Kavinsky rambled off, “you don’t think someone planted the coke do you? How else could this have happened?” It was unbearable to listen to. “Go home, Kavinsky,” he said, clipped.

Then he hung up.

As he did, a memory suddenly tore at his brain: only a few months back, he and Noah had been sitting anxiously in front of the computer, hitting refresh every five seconds aching to see that—at the time—astronomically huge milestone of a hundred thousand members. And in that moment he wanted nothing in the world for Adam to be there to enjoy the excitement with them, and then as if the mere notion of him wanting it brought it into existence, Adam burst through the door with a crumpled newspaper clenched in his fists.

The tears rolled out of him before he even realized they were there.

Oh god.

He was wrong.

  
He was wrong about everything. All of it. Adam was right about everything, all of it, and he was ruinously, disastrously, lethally wrong. His chest was heaving and sobs yanked themselves from his lungs, and he was _wrong_. The fact of it crashed into him like a runaway train, like a gunshot. He would never be able to get the bullet out. It was now lodged in him forever and he could feel it as he breathed, and it would kill him and he deserved it, and it was as true and real as the rot in his gut, which he now knew was the feeling of grief because he had lost the most important thing he’d ever known.

He had traded it away.

And for what? For _Kavinsky?_ How could he…

_Because Kavinsky was louder_, he thought to himself. Kavinsky fed him bullshit and he enjoyed it. Even if Adam had been wrong about Facebook, he had been right about Kavinsky. He at least had the dignity to feel sorry for his name appearing in the crimson. And it was because he cared about Gansey.  
The words _all I’ve ever been for you is only worth .03% of everything we’ve done together_ rang in his head, a deafening choir of awareness and regret. All of what Kavinsky said and did wasn’t love. It would never be love. He loved Adam. And at one point Adam had loved him, and he was a miracle that had been given to him and he traded it away as if it wasn’t enough.

He really had been given everything he could’ve ever wanted: the original algorithm, the startup money, his connection to Kavinsky, even the idea for Facebook itself… it had all been handed to him, just like that night during his freshmen year, when he had felt held for the first time in his life.  
With a wracked cry, the feeling shaking him as if he’d been struck, it hit him that he really had been selfish. Blue was right too, in that sense. He had been selfish the whole time. Since the moment he’d entered his life, he had manufactured Adam in his brain as this unconditional and never-ending well of stability, something he could drink from until his stomach ripped. All the following questioning and disagreeing and arguing felt too much like that well was drying up, and Gansey, sensitive as always, took that as malice, as rejection, and felt he was owed heartbreak and spectacle and Kavinsky’s cumbersome affection.  
But despite the way he tormented himself with the fear of it, he had never fully expected Adam to ever actually have enough of him.

He sunk his teeth into Adam and expected him not to flinch.

Well. He flinched.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... hiii HGKDHGKDN theydies how are we feeling after this lmao.. this is it, that's our show for the night! I can finally admit my only reason for writing this entire fic was just to write the line "fuck you boat-shoes" 
> 
> This is actually technically the last chapter since this is when the movie ends, but I figured they deserve an epilogue :( pweaseeee lmk your thoughts if you've stuck around for this long!! <33


	10. epilogue

Gansey didn’t consider Adam a liar, but the actuality of the lawsuit was still embarrassingly shocking. The one from Whelk wasn’t.

The whole deposition process was long and brutal, he felt bloody and raw at the end of each day. Adam wouldn’t even look at him, not for any of it. Not when he mentioned the algorithm on his window, not when he said the only reason Gansey came to him with the idea for Facebook was for the startup money, not when Kavinsky’s name first rang through the cold room like a plague, not when he said he all but begged Gansey on his knees to stay. And they were both 23 now, and they hadn’t wished each other happy birthday any of the four chances they had. They had only been 19 when this all began. How had they been so impossibly young? Adam at least had the dignity to look older, less gaunt and all the more beautiful since they’d last seen each other. Gansey was still plastic.

Today they’d gone over... that day. How Gansey had done the worst thing he could’ve ever done. There was nothing he or his legal team could say to smother the simple fact of that matter. It was the worst thing he’d ever done. The day was long over but Gansey couldn’t bring himself to leave. He just sat on the table, looking out the window. Adam had said he was Gansey’s only fri—

“I didn’t mean that.”

Gansey turned his head to see Adam standing in the doorway. He was wearing a three-piece suit, all different shades of charcoal, not quite funeral black. He did look older, but his handsome, boyish face had never outgrown the seriousness that was branded into it since birth. His eyebrows were still pressed permanently together. A sob wanted to snarl out of Gansey.  
He walked over to where Gansey was sitting, on the meeting table in front of the glass walls that outlooked the city. He sat down too, not too close. “You had plenty of friends.”  
Gansey just looked at him. Looked at all of him. He had a decent haircut for once, his shoes were new. Leo, Cepheus, Scorpio, and Draco were speckled across his face, as they always were, hauntingly familiar, agonizingly like home. He wore a ring too, a pretty little band locked around his finger.  
“No I didn’t,” Gansey replied, plainly. Maybe he had friends technically, but no one else like Adam. Never like Adam.  
“We were never really friends,” Adam said, smiling. It leaked grimness and mirth. Gansey missed him so much.

“Besides, I just said it because it looks better for my case if we get stuff like that on the record.”  
This time he was lying. He knew he was lying because Gansey’s lawyer had told him the same thing, and Adam was keen enough to realize that. He knew he was lying because Gansey was the head of a billion-dollar company, all of this was just a speeding ticket for him anyway, so what did it matter in the end when Adam inevitably won? He knew he was lying because he still wasn’t looking back at him. This wasn’t about winning the case, it wasn’t about money. For the first time Gansey knew Adam’s exact intentions: he just wanted an apology. And Gansey wanted to apologize, he just... couldn’t say it out loud. It broke his heart to know he’d never say it out loud. It wasn’t because he wasn’t ferociously sorry for everything, not because he wouldn't take everything back, give it all up because it wasn't worth what he'd lost, but because it wouldn’t change anything. Adam knew he was sorry, and yet it didn’t change anything. They both knew it. It was never gonna be the two of them.

Gansey sighed a fragile breath. “Well, off the record, I think I loved you first.” It was a hollow sentiment because of course Gansey loved him first. Adam’s love was earned, Gansey threw his heart at anything that moved.

The air was still for a moment.  
  
“I did look pretty good in the Aglionby uniform.”  
They looked at each other. Despite himself, despite everything, Gansey’s heart still stuttered with the realization that Adam actually had been aware of him back then, back when they were still just kids. Adam’s expression said, ‘of course I knew. How could I not have?’ And it was like no time had passed at all because the same overwhelming fondness rushed through Gansey like it always had. He felt himself smile. And suddenly Adam’s lovely hand reached to Gansey’s cheek, long fingers treating him like he was something precious as they gently fluttered across his skin.  
Only then did Gansey realize he had been crying.  
Quickly, his tears were brushed away, but Adam’s hand remained, fingertips hesitant against his skin, expression complicated and questioning. Gansey answered it by dipping his head downwards, fitting Adam’s hand against the curves of his cheek and jaw, the movement feeling like a sigh. The ring was cold, but it didn’t sting the way he thought it would have. With that in mind, he allowed himself the small freedom to cover his hand over Adam’s, maneuvering his palm over his mouth. It wasn’t quite a kiss, just skin against skin against skin. Gansey closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, shutting out the shame before it could poison his stomach.  
  
It lasted only a moment, and then Gansey lowered their hands, still clasped together. And suddenly he was 16 again, staring at his rigid knuckles, at the tendons that looked like roots, just like he did back at Aglionby. We’re both 23 now, his mind reiterated. Time was so cruel.  
Unconsciously, his thumb traveled along the fine edges, something he would’ve died to do back then, something he wouldn’t ever get to do again.

And that was fine. It was an exhale and a sob all at once.

He squeezed Adam’s hand with some finality, and he let him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We can have a little indulgent bittersweet epilogue! as a treat! 
> 
> Anyway heyyy how yall doin! God, I can't believe I started this in november of last year. What a journey its been haha! Thank god my love for both properties didn't diminish while writing this jgkdngjkd.  
This was truly so much fun to do, though I haven’t written creatively since like… god, July of last year? So I’m sorry if it was obvious how rusty I am, I’m really out of practice, but I hope any of you who have stuck around have enjoyed yourself as much as I have! I would love to do an Adam POV rewrite sometime in the future, but I think I might be a little burnt out of this au for now lol (but I definitely have ideas for it!!). I have at least one other adansey-movie-au currently in the drafting stages, as well as a semi-original au (as in.. not just some other plot retold word for word so idk what the actual story is yet lmao), so hopefully I’ll be back with Something new sometime soon!!  
Anyway, thanks so much for reading, I’ve appreciated the comments and kudos left so much, it’s been super uplifting and very kind of you all to do. Stay safe, hope all of you are well <33


End file.
